Applied Topology Seminar

An arrangement of hypersurfaces in projective space is strict normal crossing if and only if its Euler discriminant is nonzero. We study the critical loci of all Laurent monomials in the equations of the smooth hypersurfaces. These loci form an irreducible variety in the product of two projective spaces, known in algebraic statistics as the likelihood correspondence and in particle physics as the scattering correspondence. We establish an explicit determinantal representation for the bihomogeneous prime ideal of this variety.

Joint work with T. Kahle, B. Sturmfels, M. Wiesmann

In this talk, we present a topological framework for interpreting the latent representations of Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs) [1] using tools from Topological Data Analysis. Our approach constructs a simplicial tower, a sequence of simplicial complexes linked by simplicial maps, to capture how the topology of data evolves across network layers. This construction is based on the pullback of a cover tower on the output layer and is inspired by the Multiscale Mapper algorithm. The resulting commutative diagram enables a dual analysis: layer persistence, which tracks topological features within individual layers, and MLP persistence, which monitors how these features transform across layers. Through experiments on both synthetic and real-world medical datasets, we demonstrate how this method reveals critical topological transitions, identifies redundant layers, and provides interpretable insights into the internal organization of neural networks.