Approximation of wave packets on the real line (Q6096004)

This remarkable paper offers a large amount of results about the asymptotics of so-called wave-packets, local basis functions used for approximations to solutions of Schrödinger equations for instance. These are important applications. There are several approaches to this using different types of wavepackets, and it important to understand the coefficients (particularly relevant) and basis functions asymptotics of their expansions (similar to wavelet series or Fourier expansions). The authors derive substantial results that answer such questions expecially when frequencies are high, a notoriously difficult and potentially unstable situtation. The basis functions analysed in this article are stretched (essentially, scaled in their argument and encorporating a normalising factor) Fourier series, Hermite functions, based of course on those exact Hermite polynomials and their recurrence relations. And the appearently fairly simple Malmquist Tekanaka functions. For the first expansions, the coefficients decay exponentially, for example, and the expansions are closely related to (can be computed like) fast Fourier transforms. Those connected with Hermite polynomials have no such spectral decay properties although they are useful in applications of quantum mechanics. These are just two examples from the paper. All of the mentioned bases are examined in detail and there is an excellent selection of numerical computations to verify the results.