Cayley

Large-scale curvature, intrinsic dimension, graph expansion
topologicaldim graph5 metrics

What It Measures

The large-scale shape of the signal's state space.

Delay-embeds the signal into 5D, builds a k-nearest-neighbor graph on the resulting point cloud, and measures three properties of the graph that are invariants of the "Cayley graph" of the underlying dynamics: how curved it is (hyperbolicity), how fast it grows (dimension), and how connected it is (spectral gap).

Metrics

growth_exponent

How does the number of points within graph distance r scale? β ≈ 1 means the dynamics live on a curve (1D). β ≈ 2 means area-filling (2D manifold). β > 2 means volume-filling or branching. BTC returns score 2.07 (the highest in the atlas — financial returns fill a 2D manifold in delay space). Lotka-Volterra scores 0.56 (its limit cycles live on a 1D curve). DNA scores moderately (1.5-1.7), consistent with a branching structure in sequence space.

delta_hyp_norm

Gromov δ-hyperbolicity, normalized by diameter. δ ≈ 0 means the graph is tree-like (hyperbolic, negative curvature). δ/diam ≈ 0.25 means flat (Euclidean). Logistic chaos (0.26) and DNA (0.26) are the most "flat" — their delay embeddings fill space uniformly, without tree-like branching. Periodic orbits score 0.0 (trivially tree-like — just a cycle).

spectral_gap

Fiedler eigenvalue of the graph Laplacian: how well-connected is the state space? Large gap means rapid mixing (the dynamics explore the full space quickly). BTC returns (0.035) and neural net dense (0.029) have the largest gaps — both are highly mixing processes. Symbolic Henon scores 0.0 (its state space has disconnected components in the graph).

local_linearity

Average fraction of variance explained by the first principal component in each k-NN neighborhood. Logistic Chaos (0.99) and Bernoulli Shift (0.99) score highest — their delay embeddings form locally 1D manifolds (the trajectory looks like a curve at every point). Fibonacci Word and Thue-Morse score 0.33 (= 1/embed_dim, isotropic — neighbors are equally spread in all directions). This measures whether the attractor is locally a curve (high) or a cloud (low). Evolved via ShinkaEvolve.

saturation_radius

Normalized radius at which the growth exponent saturates. DNA Dog, Rule 110, and Thue-Morse all hit 1.0 (growth saturates immediately — the graph fills its available space at the smallest scale). BTC Returns (0.008) and financial returns score near zero (growth continues to increase across the full range of graph distances — the state space is large relative to the trajectory).

Atlas Rankings

delta_hyp_norm
SourceDomainValue
Logistic Chaoschaos0.2616
DNA Dogbio0.2557
DNA Plasmodiumbio0.2557
···
Logistic r=3.83 (Period-3 Window)chaos0.0000
Logistic r=3.2 (Period-2)chaos0.0000
fBm (Persistent)noise0.0023
growth_exponent
SourceDomainValue
BTC Returnsfinancial2.0668
Constant 0xFFnoise1.9952
Rainfall (ORD Hourly)climate1.9913
···
Lotka-Volterrabio0.5559
LFSR (16-bit)exotic0.7245
Pomeau-Mannevillechaos0.7281
local_linearity
SourceDomainValue
Logistic Chaoschaos0.9916
Bernoulli Shiftchaos0.9895
Logistic r=3.9 (Near-Full Chaos)chaos0.9850
···
Logistic r=3.74 (Period-5 Window)chaos0.3333
Fibonacci Wordexotic0.3333
Symbolic Lorenzexotic0.3333
saturation_radius
SourceDomainValue
DNA Chimpbio1.0000
DNA Humanbio1.0000
DNA Phage Lambdabio1.0000
···
BTC Returnsfinancial0.0080
GOE Spacingsquantum0.0099
Accel Jogmotion0.0099
spectral_gap
SourceDomainValue
BTC Returnsfinancial0.0354
Neural Net (Dense)binary0.0288
Gaussian Noisenoise0.0287
···
Rule 30exotic0.0000
Symbolic Lorenzexotic0.0000
Logistic r=3.5 (Period-4)chaos0.0000

When It Lights Up

Cayley's spectral_gap was a key discriminator in the negative re-evaluation study: it helped reclassify Arnold cat map and GARCH as positive detections. Growth exponent provides an intrinsic dimension estimate that complements the extrinsic dimension from fractal geometries. In the atlas, Cayley separates the distributional view's C3 (low growth, tree-like: symbolic dynamics and periodic orbits) from C2 (high growth, flat: continuous chaos and noise).

Open in Atlas
← ZariskiPersistent Homology →