Related papers: Nonsmooth manifold decompositions
In a previous work we proved the uniqueness and functoriality of primary unfoldings on simple Thom-Mather spaces, which is a functor to the category of smooth manifolds. In this article we extend these results for any stratified Thom-Mather…
We define essential and strongly essential triangulations of 3-manifolds, and give four constructions using different tools (Heegaard splittings, hierarchies of Haken 3-manifolds, Epstein-Penner decompositions, and cut loci of Riemannian…
We show that on a two-dimensional compact nontrapping manifold with strictly convex boundary, a piecewise constant function is determined by its integrals over geodesics. In higher dimensions, we obtain a similar result if the manifold…
Topological surgery occurs in natural phenomena where two points are selected and attracting or repelling forces are applied. The two points are connected via an invisible `thread'. In order to model topologically such phenomena we…
We define cusp-decomposable manifolds and prove smooth rigidity within this class of manifolds. These manifolds generally do not admit a nonpositively curved metric but can be decomposed into pieces that are diffeomorphic to finite volume,…
A theory of bisheaves has been recently introduced to measure the homological stability of fibers of maps to manifolds. A bisheaf over a topological space is a triple consisting of a sheaf, a cosheaf, and compatible maps from the stalks of…
For functional data lying on an unknown nonlinear low-dimensional space, we study manifold learning and introduce the notions of manifold mean, manifold modes of functional variation and of functional manifold components. These constitute…
We investigate smooth approximations of functions, with prescribed gradient behavior on a distinguished stratified subset of the domain. As an application, we outline how our results yield important consequences for a recently introduced…
We define an invariant, which we call surface-complexity, of compact 3-manifolds by means of Dehn surfaces. The surface-complexity is a natural number measuring how much the manifold is complicated. We prove that it fulfils interesting…
We characterize structures such as monotonicity, convexity, and modality in smooth regression curves using persistent homology. Persistent homology is a key tool in topological data analysis that detects higher-dimensional topological…
In analogy with the Thurston norm, we define for an orientable 3-manifold $M$ a numerical function on $H_2(M;Q/Z)$. This function measures the minimal complexity of folded surfaces representing a given homology class. A similar function is…
We define \emph{piecewise rank 1} manifolds, which are aspherical manifolds that generally do not admit a nonpositively curved metric but can be decomposed into pieces that are diffeomorphic to finite volume, irreducible, locally symmetric,…
For every integer $k\geq 2$, we construct infinite families of mutually nondiffeomorphic irreducible smooth structures on the topological $4$-manifolds $(2k-1)(S^2\times S^2)$ and $(2k-1)(\CP#\CPb)$, the connected sums of $2k-1$ copies of…
The polynomial invariants $q_d$ for a large class of smooth 4-manifolds are shown to satisfy universal relations. The relations reflect the possible genera of embedded surfaces in the 4-manifold and lead to a structure theorem for the…
A simplified trisection is a trisection map on a 4-manifold such that, in its critical value set, there is no double point and cusps only appear in triples on innermost fold circles. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a…
We adapt previous research on category theory and topological unsupervised learning to develop a functorial perspective on manifold learning, also known as nonlinear dimensionality reduction. We first characterize manifold learning…
The stable and unstable manifolds of an invariant set of a piecewise-smooth map are themselves piecewise-smooth. Consequently, as parameters of a piecewise-smooth map are varied, an invariant set can develop a homoclinic connection when its…
We study how to construct explicit deformations of generic smooth maps from closed $n$--dimensional manifolds $M$ with $n \geq 2$ to the $2$--sphere $S^2$ and show that every smooth map $M \to S^2$ is homotopic to a $C^\infty$ stable map…
We introduce a theory of stratifications of noncommutative stacks (i.e. presentable stable $\infty$-categories), and we prove a reconstruction theorem that expresses them in terms of their strata and gluing data. This reconstruction theorem…
Given a smooth curve on a smooth surface, the Hilbert scheme of the surface is stratified according to the length of the intersection with the curve. The strata are highly singular. We show that this stratification admits a natural…