The phase of the Daubechies filters (Q1382007)

The \(N\)th Daubechies orthogonal wavelet with \(N+1\) vanishing moments can be characterized by a filter with minimal length which is described by a trigonometric polynomial \(m_N\) of degree \(2N+1\). In fact there are many \(m_N\) since only the modulus is fixed. In its minimum phase version, it takes the form \(m_N=b^{N+1}\Pi_N\) with \(b(\xi)=(1+e^{-i\xi})/2\) and \(\Pi_N(\xi)=\zeta_1(\xi)\cdots\zeta_N(\xi)\) where \(\zeta_k(\xi)=(e^{-i\xi}-z_{N,k})/(1-z_{N,k})\). The asymptotic behavior of \(| m_N(\xi)| \) as \(N\to\infty\) is known. It is a unit step function taking the value \(2^{-1/2}\) at \(\xi=\pi/2\), the place of the step. This paper investigates the asymptotic behavior of the phase. More precisely it investigates \(\lim_{N\to\infty} \omega_N(\xi)\) where \(\omega_N\) is the argument of the complex function \(\Pi_N\) defined above. This is obtained by first estimating the (simple) zeros \(z_{N,k}\) for \(N\) large. This leads to an expression for the asymptotic behaviour of \(\omega_N\) in terms of polylogarithms of order 2. Also, it is shown how to obtain among the non-minimal phase forms of the Daubechies filters one which is an asymptotically almost linear phase.