Efficient $1$-Laplacian Solvers for Well-Shaped Simplicial Complexes: Beyond Betti Numbers and Collapsing Sequences

Abstract: We present efficient algorithms for approximately solving systems of linear equations in $1$-Laplacians of well-shaped simplicial complexes up to high precision. $1$-Laplacians, or higher-dimensional Laplacians, generalize graph Laplacians to higher-dimensional simplicial complexes and play a key role in computational topology and topological data analysis. Previously, nearly-linear time approximate solvers were developed for simplicial complexes with known collapsing sequences and bounded Betti numbers, such as those triangulating a three-ball in $\mathbb{R}^3$ (Cohen, Fasy, Miller, Nayyeri, Peng, and Walkington [SODA'2014], Black, Maxwell, Nayyeri, and Winkelman [SODA'2022], Black and Nayyeri [ICALP'2022]). Furthermore, Nested Dissection provides quadratic time exact solvers for more general systems with nonzero structures representing well-shaped simplicial complexes embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$. We generalize the specialized solvers for $1$-Laplacians to simplicial complexes with additional geometric structures but without collapsing sequences and bounded Betti numbers, and we improve the runtime of Nested Dissection. We focus on simplicial complexes that meet two conditions: (1) each individual simplex has a bounded aspect ratio, and (2) they can be divided into "disjoint" and balanced regions with well-shaped interiors and boundaries. Our solvers draw inspiration from the Incomplete Nested Dissection for stiffness matrices of well-shaped trusses (Kyng, Peng, Schwieterman, and Zhang [STOC'2018]).