Convergence of spectral discretization for the flow of diffeomorphisms

Abstract The Large Deformation Diffeomorphic Metric Mapping (LDDMM) or flow of diffeomorphism is a classical framework in the field of shape spaces and is widely applied in mathematical imaging and computational anatomy. Essentially, it equips a group of diffeomorphisms with a right-invariant Riemannian metric, which allows to compute (Riemannian) distances or interpolations between different deformations. The associated Euler–Lagrange equation of shortest interpolation paths is one of the standard examples of a partial differential equation that can be approached with Lie group theory (by interpreting it as a geodesic ordinary differential equation on the Lie group of diffeomorphisms). The particular group $$\mathcal {D}^m$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>D</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>m</mml:mi> </mml:msup> </mml:math> of Sobolev diffeomorphisms is by now sufficiently understood to allow the analysis of geodesics and their numerical approximation. We prove convergence of a widely used Fourier-type space discretization of the geodesic equation. It is based on a regularity estimate, for which we also provide a new proof: Geodesics in $$\mathcal {D}^m$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>D</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>m</mml:mi> </mml:msup> </mml:math> preserve any higher order Sobolev regularity of their initial velocity.