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arXiv · 2108.06988

A diffusion-map-based algorithm for gradient computation on manifolds and applications

Alvaro Almeida Gomez·Antônio J. Silva Neto·Jorge P. Zubelli
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Abstract

We recover the Riemannian gradient of a given function defined on interior points of a Riemannian submanifold in the Euclidean space based on a sample of function evaluations at points in the submanifold. This approach is based on the estimates of the Laplace-Beltrami operator proposed in the diffusion-maps theory. The Riemannian gradient estimates do not involve differential terms. Analytical convergence results of the Riemannian gradient expansion are proved. We apply the Riemannian gradient estimate in a gradient-based algorithm providing a derivative-free optimization method. We test and validate several applications, including tomographic reconstruction from an unknown random angle distribution, and the sphere packing problem in dimensions 2 and 3.

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Alvaro Almeida Gomez, Antônio J. Silva Neto, Jorge P. Zubelli. 2023-06-05. A diffusion-map-based algorithm for gradient computation on manifolds and applications. https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.06988

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