Approximating the Derivative of Manifold-valued Functions

Abstract: We consider the approximation of manifold-valued functions by embedding the manifold into a higher dimensional space, applying a vector-valued approximation operator and projecting the resulting vector back to the manifold. It is well known that the approximation error for manifold-valued functions is close to the approximation error for vector-valued functions. This is not true anymore if we consider the derivatives of such functions. In our paper we give pre-asymptotic error bounds for the approximation of the derivative of manifold-valued function. In particular, we provide explicit constants that depend on the reach of the embedded manifold.