Complex B-splines (Q2368867)

Suppose \(z=\alpha+i\gamma\), \(\alpha >-{1\over 2}\), \(\gamma \in {\mathbb R}\). The complex B-spline \(\beta^z\) of complex degree \(z\) is defined in \(L_2({\mathbb R})\) via its Plancherel transform \[ {\hat \beta}^z(\omega)=\left ({1-e^{-i\omega} \over i\omega} \right )^{z+1}=e^{(z+1)\ln w},\quad w={1-e^{-i\omega} \over i\omega}, \] where the principal branch of \(\ln w\) is considered. The shifted variant \(\beta_y^z\) is defined in \(L_2({\mathbb R})\) by \[ {\hat \beta}_y^z(\omega)=\left ({1-e^{-i\omega} \over i\omega} \right )^{{z+1 \over 2}-y} \left ({1-e^{-i\omega} \over -i\omega} \right )^{{z+1 \over 2}+y}. \] The complex B-splines \(\beta^z\) and \(\beta_y^z\) are well-defined, uniformly continuous, and elements of \(L_2({\mathbb R})\). In the time domain, \[ \beta^z(x)={1 \over \Gamma (z+1)}\sum_{k\geq 0} (-1)^k{{z+1} \choose k} (x-k)_+^z, \] where \[ {{z+1} \choose k}={\Gamma (z+2) \over \Gamma(k+1)\Gamma(z+2-k)}. \] When \(z \in {\mathbb N}\), one obtains from this the classic Schoenberg polynomial spline. An explicit formula for \(\beta_y^z\) in the time domain is also found. Both \(\beta^z\) and \(\beta_y^z\) belong to the Sobolev spaces \(W_2^r({\mathbb R})\) with \(r<\alpha+1/2\). The well-known recurrence relations carry over to the complex case, and so does the multiresulution analysis. Finally, the authors prove that the complex B-splines converge to modulated Gaussians as their degree increases and that they are asymptotically optimally localized in the time-frequency plane in the sense of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.