Hermite functions and uncertainty principles for the Fourier and the windowed Fourier trans\-forms. (Q1413717)

The authors extend an uncertainty principle due to Beurling into a characterization of Hermite functions. More precisely, all functions \(f\) in \(\mathbb{R}^d\) which may be written as \(P(x) \text{ exp} (-\langle Ax,x \rangle)\), with \(A\) a real symmetric positive definite matrix, are characterized by integrability conditions on the product \(f(x) \widehat{f}(y)\). They also obtain similar results for the windowed Fourier transform (also known, up to elementary changes of functions, as the radar ambiguity function or the Wigner transform). The paper ends with a sharp version of Heisenberg's inequality for this transform.