Persistent homology of semi-algebraic sets

We give an algorithm with singly exponential complexity for computing the barcodes up to dimension $\ell$ (for any fixed $\ell \geq 0$) of the filtration of a given semi-algebraic set by the sub-level sets of a given polynomial. Our algorithm is the first algorithm for this problem with singly exponential complexity, and generalizes the corresponding results for computing the Betti numbers up to dimension $\ell$ of semi-algebraic sets with no filtration present.