On persistent homology of random Čech complexes

Abstract: The paper studies the relation between critical simplices and persistence diagrams of the \v{C}ech filtration. We show that adding a critical $k$-simplex into the filtration corresponds either to a point in the $k$th persistence diagram or a point in the $(k-1)$st persistence diagram. Consequently, the number of points in persistence diagrams can be expressed in terms of the number of critical simplices. As an application, we establish some convergence results related to persistence diagrams of the \v{C}ech filtrations built over binomial point processes.