Hypernetworks: From Posets to Geometry

Abstract

We show that hypernetworks can be regarded as posets which, in their turn, have a natural interpretation as simplicial complexes and, as such, are endowed with an intrinsic notion of curvature, namely the Forman Ricci curvature, that strongly correlates with the Euler characteristic of the simplicial complex. This approach, inspired by the work of E. Bloch, allows us to canonically associate a simplicial complex structure to a hypernetwork, directed or undirected. In particular, this greatly simplifying the geometric Persistent Homology method we previously proposed.