Topological Applications of p-Adic Divergence and Gradient Operators

Abstract

$p$-Adic divergence and gradient operators are constructed giving rise to $p$-adic vertex Laplacian operators used by Z\'u\~niga in order to study Turing patterns on graphs, as well as their edge Laplacian counterparts. It is shown that the Euler characteristic of a finite graph can be expressed via traces of certain heat kernels associated with these new operators. This result is applied to the extraction of topological information from Mumford curves via heat kernels.