Controlling Statistical, Discretization, and Truncation Errors in Learning Fourier Linear Operators

Abstract: We study learning-theoretic foundations of operator learning, using the linear layer of the Fourier Neural Operator architecture as a model problem. First, we identify three main errors that occur during the learning process: statistical error due to finite sample size, truncation error from finite rank approximation of the operator, and discretization error from handling functional data on a finite grid of domain points. Finally, we analyze a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) based least squares estimator, establishing both upper and lower bounds on the aforementioned errors.