Variational decomposition of vector fields in the presence of noise

We present a variational framework, and an algorithm based on the alternating method of multipliers (ADMM), for the problem of decomposing a vector field into its curl- and divergence-free components (Helmholtz decomposition) in the presence of noise. We provide experimental confirmation of the effectiveness of our approach by separating vector fields consisting of a curl-free gradient field super-imposed on a divergence-free laminar flow corrupted by noise, as well as suppressing non-zero divergence distortions in a computational fluid dynamics simulation of blood flow in the thoracic aorta. The methods developed and presented here can be used in the analysis of flow-field images and in their correction and enhancement by enforcing suitable physical constraints such as zero divergence.