Beyond Invariant Dictionary: Data-Driven Koopman Spectral Recovery with Filtered Extended Dynamic Mode Decomposition

Abstract

The Koopman operator provides a linear framework for analyzing nonlinear dynamical systems through spectral properties. Extended Dynamic Mode Decomposition (EDMD) approximates this operator from data, but non-invariant dictionaries can introduce spurious eigenvalues. We introduce the Projected Koopman Operator Approximation framework for constructing Filtered EDMD operators. The framework projects the Koopman action onto admissible dictionary subspaces that need not be invariant, while exactly preserving every represented Koopman eigenpair with nonzero eigenvalue. A forward--intersection chain provides a canonical hierarchy of compatible subspaces, connecting the full dictionary to its maximal invariant core while retaining useful intermediate models. We analyze two projection geometries: a coordinate-orthogonal projector, which requires no function-space Gram-matrix estimate but is basis-dependent, and a function-space orthogonal projector, which recovers population EDMD at the unfiltered level. We characterize their relationship to EDMD and existing subspace-selection methods. We also develop SVD-based algorithms for constructing sampled forward--intersection spaces and implementing the coordinate projector. Under independent noiseless sampling and exact-rank identifiability, the resulting empirical operators converge almost surely to their population counterparts. Experiments on a Kronecker flow, a polynomial system, and the Van~der~Pol oscillator demonstrate reduced spectral pollution. For Van~der~Pol, the coordinate projector recovers the local equilibrium spectrum independently of the sampling measure, whereas the $L^2(\mu)$ projector approximates the limit-cycle spectrum on the same certified subspace.