Hamiltonian Approach to Shape Spaces in a Diffeomorphic Framework : From the Discontinuous Image Matching Problem to a Stochastic Growth Model.APPROCHE HAMILTONIENNE POUR LES ESPACES DE FORMES DANS LE CADRE DES DIFFÉOMORPHISMES: DU PROBLÈME DE RECALAGE D'IMAGES DISCONTINUES À UN MODÈLE STOCHASTIQUE DE CROISSANCE DE FORMES.

Summary This thesis takes place in the context of image matching within the framework of large deformation diffeomorphisms. With important applications to medical imaging and computational anatomy, this approach uses the action of diffeomorphisms groups in order to classify images. One of the first issue to deal with is to compute the distance between objects on which can act the group of diffeomorphisms. The case of discontinuous images was very partially understood. The first part of this thesis is devoted to fully tackle the case of discontinuous images in any dimension. Namely the images are assumed to be functions of bounded variations. We have provided technical tools to deal with discontinuous images within the diffeomorphism framework. The first application developed is a Hamiltonian formulation of the geodesic equations for a new model including a change of contrast in the images which is represented by an action of a diffeomorphism on the values of the level lines of the image. The second one is an extension of the metamorphosis framework developed by A.