Phase retrieval techniques for radar ambiguity problems (Q1302338)

The radar ambiguity function plays a central role in radar signal processing because it summarizes the response of matched filter to a point target that is delayed and/or Doppler frequency shifted with respect to the expected target for which the matched filter was tuned [\textit{J. C. Curlander} and \textit{R. N. McDonough}, Synthetic aperture radar: Systems and signal processing. Wiley, New York (1991), \textit{R. J. Sullivan}, Microwave radar: Imaging and advanced concepts. Artech House, Boston (2000)]. Due to its close connection to quantum holomorphy, the range of applications of the radar ambiguity function is far beyond synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging [\textit{W. Schempp}, Harmonic analysis on the Heisenberg nilpotent Lie group, with applications to signal theory. Pitman Research Notes Math. 147, Longman, London (1986; Zbl 0632.43001)]. It includes the clinical modality of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [\textit{W. Schempp}, Wavelet modelling of clinical magnetic resonance tomography: An ensemble quantum computing approach. In: Inverse Problems, Tomography, and Image Processing, A. G. Ramm (ed.), Plenum Press, New York, pp. 129-176 (1998); Magnetic resonance imaging: Mathematical foundations and applications. Wiley-Liss, New York (1998; Zbl 0930.92015)], as well as the detection of gravitational wavelets emitted by the binary radio pulsar PSR 1913+16, and the perfect reduplication process of DNA information in molecular genetics [\textit{E. Binz} and \textit{W. Schempp}, Quantum hologram and relativistic hodogram: Magnetic resonance tomography and gravitational wavelet detection. Preprint (to appear)]. The detection of gravitational wavelets performed by very large array (VLA) radio interferometers, and the genetic information is carried by Heisenberg helices combined with their antiparallel flippings [\textit{W. Schempp}, Sub-Riemannian geometry and clinical magnetic resonance tomography. Math. Meth. Appl. Sci. 22, 867-922 (1999)]. The paper under review ignores the perfect holographic reconstruction capability of the radar ambiguity function which is based on harmonic analysis on the Heisenberg nilpotent Lie group as well as the zero flipping under the central action of the metaplectic group which forms a two-fold covering group of the modular group \(SL(2,\mathbb{R})\). Instead it deals with the phase retrieval problem by means of the radar ambiguity functions associated with compactly supported functions in Paley-Wiener type spaces. Concerning Pauli's ambiguity function problem, the article shows how to construct functions admitting an infinity of Pauli partners.