Vietoris-Rips complexes of torus grids

Abstract

We study the topology of Vietoris--Rips complexes of finite grids on the torus. Let $T_{n,n}$ be the grid of $n\times n$ points on the flat torus $S^1\times S^1$, equipped with the $l^1$ metric. Let $\mathrm{VR}(T_{n,n};k)$ be the Vietoris--Rips simplicial complex of this torus grid at scale $k\ge 0$. For $n\ge 7$ and small scales $2\le k\le \frac{n-1}{3}$, the complex $\mathrm{VR}(T_{n,n};k)$ is homotopy equivalent to the torus. For large scales $k\ge 2\lfloor\frac{n}{2}\rfloor$, the complex $\mathrm{VR}(T_{n,n};k)$ is a simplex and hence contractible. Interesting topology arises over intermediate scales $\frac{n-1}{3}<k<2\lfloor\frac{n}{2}\rfloor$. For example, we prove that $\mathrm{VR}(T_{2n,2n};2n-1)\cong S^{2n^2-1}$ for $n\ge 2$, that $\mathrm{VR}(T_{3n,3n};n)\simeq\vee^{6n^2-1}S^2$ for $n\ge 2$, and that $\mathrm{VR}(T_{3n-1,3n-1};n)\simeq \bigvee_{6n-3} S^2\vee \bigvee_{6n-2}S^3$ for $n\geq 3$. Based on homology computations, we conjecture that $\mathrm{VR}(T_{n,n};k)$ is homotopy equivalent to a $3$-sphere for a countable family of $(n,k)$ pairs, and we prove this for $(n,k)=(7,4)$.