Čech–Delaunay gradient flow and homology inference for self-maps

Abstract We call a continuous self-map that reveals itself through a discrete set of point-value pairs a sampled dynamical system. Capturing the available information with chain maps on Delaunay complexes, we use persistent homology to quantify the evidence of recurrent behavior. We establish a sampling theorem to recover the eigenspaces of the endomorphism on homology induced by the self-map. Using a combinatorial gradient flow arising from the discrete Morse theory for Čech and Delaunay complexes, we construct a chain map to transform the problem from the natural but expensive Čech complexes to the computationally efficient Delaunay triangulations. The fast chain map algorithm has applications beyond dynamical systems.