Closed form representations for a class of compactly supported radial basis functions (Q429791)

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.