Nonuniform multiresolution analyses and spectral pairs (Q1270011)

The authors consider a generalization of the notion of multiresolution analysis, based on the theory of spectral pairs: If \(A\) is a measurable subset of \({\mathbb R}^n\) with measure \(| A | > 0\) and \(\Lambda \subset {\mathbb R}^n\) is discrete, \((A, \Lambda)\) forms a spectral pair if the collection \(\{| A |^{-1/2} e^{2 \pi i \xi \cdot \lambda} \chi_{A}(\xi), \lambda \in \Lambda\}\) is a complete orthonormal system for \(L^2_{A}\). In contrast to the standard setting, the associated subspace \(V_0\) of \(L^2({\mathbb R})\) has, as an orthonormal basis, a collection of translates of the scaling function of the form \(\{\phi(x - \lambda); \lambda \in \Lambda\}\), where \(\Lambda = \{0, r/N\} + 2 {\mathbb Z}\), \(N \geq 1\) is an integer, and \(r\) is an odd integer with \(1 \leq r \leq 2N-1\) such that \(r\) and \(N\) are relatively prime and \({\mathbb Z}\) is the set of all integers. Furthermore, the corresponding dilation factor is \(2N\), the case where \(N=1\) corresponds to the usual definition of a multiresolution analysis with dilation factor \(2\). A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of associated wavelets, which is always satisfied when \(N=1\) or \(2\), is obtained and is shown to always hold if the Fourier transform of \(\phi\) is a constant multiple of the characteristic function of a set.