Proof of the HRT conjecture for configurations (Q662057)

The authors prove a special case of the \textit{HRT conjecture} on linear dependencies between time-frequency translates of \(L^2\)-functions. More precisely, they show that if the points \((t_j, \xi_j)_{1 \leq j \leq 4}\) are the vertices of a planar trapezoid, then for any function \(f \in L^2(\mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{C})\) there cannot exist a nontrivial linear dependence \[ \sum_{j=1}^4 d_j f(x-t_j)e^{2 \pi i \xi_j x} = 0. \] For the proof they use methods from Diophantine approximation and continued fraction theory. The HRT conjecture was originally formulated by \textit{C. Heil, J. Ramanathan} and \textit{P. Topiwala}, [``Linear independence of time-frequency translates'', Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 124, No.9, 2787--2795 (1996; Zbl 0859.42023)]. It states that there exist no nontrivial linear dependencies for any \(f \in L^2 (\mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{C})\) and any set of planar points \((t_j, \xi_j)_{1 \leq j \leq n}\). So far, only a few special cases have been proved.