Closed form representations for a class of compactly supported radial basis functions (Q429791): Difference between revisions

Positive definite functions are of importance for scattered data fitting algorithms in Euclidean space and on spheres and the paper under review studies a special class. Definition. A function \(\phi : [0,\infty)\rightarrow\mathbb R\) is said to generate a \textit{strictly positive definite radial function} on \(\mathbb R^d\), if, for any \(n>2\) distinct locations \(x_1,\dots,x_n\in\mathbb R^d\) the following \(n\times n\) distance matrix \[ \left(\phi(\|x_j-x_k\|\right)_{j,k=1}^n, \] where \(\|\cdot \|\) denotes the Euclidean norm, is positive definite. Starting from a known generator as in the definiiton above, there are several strategies to find further examples, using the `dimension drop operator' \[ (I_{\alpha}f)(r)={1\over \Gamma(\alpha)}\int_r^{\infty}\,f(u)(u-r)^{\alpha -1}du, \] \(f\) any real valued function on \([0,\infty)\), whose derivatives decay faster than any polynomial and where \(\alpha\geq 1\). So called Wendland functions (cf. [\textit{H. Wendland}, Adv. Comput. Math. 4, No. 4, 389--396 (1995; Zbl 0838.41014)]) can then be given by \[ \begin{multlined} \phi_{[d/2]+k+1,k}(r)=\left(I_kf_{[d/2]+k+1}\right)(r^2/2)\\ ={1\over 2^{k-1}\Gamma(k)}\int_r^1\,t(1-t)^{[d/2]+k+1} (t^2-r^2)^{k-1}dt\end{multlined} \] (cf. [\textit{H. Wendland}, Scattered data approximation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2005; Zbl 1075.65021)]) and are given in the paper under review as \[ \phi_{[d/2]+k+1,k}(r)=\ell !(1-r^2)^{(\ell +k)/2}r^kP_k^{-(\ell +k)}\left({1\over r}\right),\;r\in [0,1],\;\ell=[d/2]+k+1, \] (where \(P_a^{b}(\cdot)\) is the associated Legendre function of the first kind of degree \(a\) and order \(b\)) and explicitly as \[ \phi_{[d/2]+k+1,k}(r)={1\over 2^kk!}(1-r)^{\ell +k}\sum_{j=0}^k\;{{k\choose j}\over{\ell +k+j\choose{k+j}}}2^{k-j}r^{k-j} (1-r)^j. \] Furthermore, the so called `missing' Wendland functions \[ \begin{multlined} \phi_{[(d+k)/2]+k+1,k/2}(r)=\left(I_kf_{[d/2]+k+1}\right)(r^2/2)\\ ={1\over 2^{k/2-1}\Gamma(k/2)}\int_r^1\, t(1-t)^{[(d+k)/2]+1}(t^2-r^2)^{k/2-1}dt\end{multlined} \] are treated and given using the associated Legendre functions of the second kind \(Q_a^{b}(\cdot)\); their closed form is \[ \phi_{[(d+k)/2]+1,k/2}(r)=A_{\ell k}\left[P(r)\log{\left({1+\sqrt{1-r^2}\over 1-\sqrt{1-r^2}}\right)}+Q(r)\sqrt{1-r^2}\right], \] where {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[-] if \(\ell=[(d+k)/2]+1\) is even, then \(P,Q\) are polynomials of degree \(\ell -1+k\), \item[-] if \(\ell=[(d+k)/2]+1\) is odd, then \(P\) is a polynomial of degree \(\ell +k\) and \(Q\) of degree \(\ell +k-2\), \end{itemize}} and the \(A_{\ell k}, P, Q\) are given explicitly.