Representing two-parameter persistence modules via graphcodes

Abstract

Graphcodes were recently introduced as a technique to employ two-parameter persistence modules in machine learning tasks (Kerber and Russold, NeurIPS 2024). We show in this work that a compressed version of graphcodes yields a description of a two-parameter module that is equivalent to a presentation of the module. This alternative representation as a graph allows for a simple translation between combinatorics and algebra: connected components of the graphcode correspond to summands of the module and isolated paths correspond to intervals. We demonstrate that graphcodes are useful in practice by speeding-up the task of decomposing a module into indecomposable summands. Also, the graphcode viewpoint allows to devise a simple algorithm to decide whether a persistence module is interval-decomposable in $O(n^4)$ time, which improves on the previous bound of $O(n^{2\omega+1})$.