Persistence and Topological Complexity

Abstract: Topological complexity is a homotopy invariant that measures the minimal number of continuous rules required for motion planning in a space. In this work, we introduce persistent analogs of topological complexity and its cohomological lower bound, the zero-divisor-cup-length, for persistent topological spaces, and establish their stability. For Vietoris-Rips filtrations of compact metric spaces, we show that the erosion distances between these persistent invariants are bounded above by twice the Gromov-Hausdorff distance. We also present examples illustrating that persistent topological complexity and persistent zero-divisor-cup-length can distinguish between certain spaces more effectively than persistent homology.