Multiresolution analysis on local fields (Q596782)

The Rademacher functions on the compact unit interval [0,1] and the associated system of Walsh-Paley functions, which are finite products of Rademacher functions, are concepts of wavelet analysis which play an important role in digital signal processing [\textit{H. Rademacher}, Math. Ann. 87, 112--138 (1922; JFM 48.0485.05); \textit{J.L. Walsh}, Am. J. Math. 45, 5--24 (1923; JFM 49.0293.03), also in: Selected Papers of \textit{J. L. Walsh, T. J. Rivlin} and \textit{E. B. Saff}, Editors, 109--128 (2000); \textit{R. E. A. C. Paley}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. 34, 241--279 (1932; JFM 58.0284.03); \textit{H. F. Harmuth}, Transmission of information by orthogonal functions (1972; Zbl 0252.94001); \textit{H.D. Lüke}, Signalübertragung: Einführung in die Theorie der Nachrichtenübertragungstechnik (1979; Zbl 0409.94001); \textit{R. A. Haddad} and \textit{T. W. Parsons}, Digital Signal Processing: Theory, Applications, and Hardware (1991)]. The Walsh-Paley functions take on values of \(\{1, - 1\}\) only and lead in a natural way to the concept of dyadic field [\textit{M. H. Taibleson}, Fourier analysis on local fields (1975; Zbl 0319.42011)]. The earliest use of continuous Walsh-Paley functions in communication, however, is for the transposition of conductors [\textit{F. F. Fowle}, The transposition of conductors, Trans. AIEE 23, 659--687 (1905); \textit{B. Siegert}, Passagen des Digitalen: Zeichenpraktiken der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaften 1500--1900 (2003)]. The paper under review extends in a straightforward way the concept of multiresolution analysis to local fields \(K\) and describes the construction of wavelets within \(L^2(K)\). In the context of harmonic analysis on a local field \(K\), the construction of a multiresolution analysis depends on the fact that the additive group \(K^+\) of translations of the locally compact, non-discrete, totally disconnected, topological field \(K\) under its ultrametric norm \(| \cdot| \) carries a Haar measure \(dx\) so that \(dx \over | x|\) forms a Haar measure of the multiplicative group \(K^\times\) of dilations. The article concludes with an example which outlines the construction of wavelets of Haar type [\textit{A. Haar}, Zur Theorie der orthogonalen Funktionensysteme. Erste Mitteilung, Math. Ann. 69, 331--371 (1909)]. Unfortunately, the authors seem not to be aware of the significance of wavelets on local fields to quantum computing which represents a novel field of applications. The aspect of quantum computing is extremely promising [\textit{J. Stolze} and \textit{D. Suter}, Quantum Computing: A Short Course from Theory to Experiment (2004)] and should therefore be included into any wavelet approach to orthogonal functions of Haar type.