Spectral Geometry and Dispersion-Constrained Projection of Diffusive Fields

Abstract

Diffusive fields obey operator-imposed relations between spatial structure and temporal decay, yet conventional spectral filtering selects components primarily according to frequency or wavenumber magnitude. Here we show that the diffusion operator defines a spectral geometry in the joint space of spatial wavenumber and modal decay rate, where physically admissible modes occupy the manifold $η=α|\mathbf{k}|^2$. This geometry separates spectral scale from physical consistency: high-wavenumber modes can remain diffusion-consistent, whereas lower-wavenumber modes can violate the governing dynamics. We exploit this distinction by introducing an operator residual and a finite-width soft projection that selects spectral components according to their distance from the diffusion manifold rather than their spectral magnitude. Numerical studies demonstrate robust recovery under noise, diffusivity mismatch, and finite acquisition, and reveal a consistency--retention tradeoff governed by the manifold width. Photothermal experiments further confirm that the projection suppresses off-manifold spectral content while retaining the dominant thermal response. These results establish operator consistency as a spectral-selection principle for diffusive fields and provide a geometric framework for physics-informed processing of dissipative systems.