
In mathematics, Fourier analysis is the study of the way general functions may be represented or approximated by sums of simpler trigonometric functions. Fourier analysis grew from the study of Fourier series, and is named after Joseph Fourier, who showed that representing a function as a sum of trigonometric functions greatly simplifies the study of heat transfer.
Beevers–Lipson strips were a computational aid for early crystallographers in calculating Fourier transforms to determine the structure of crystals from crystallographic data, enabling the creation of models for complex molecules. They were used from the 1930s until computers with enough power became generally available in the 1960s.

Bessel functions, first defined by the mathematician Daniel Bernoulli and then generalized by Friedrich Bessel, are canonical solutions y(x) of Bessel's differential equation

In physics, a Bragg plane is a plane in reciprocal space which bisects a reciprocal lattice vector, , at right angles. The Bragg plane is defined as part of the Von Laue condition for diffraction peaks in x-ray diffraction crystallography.

In signal processing, the chirplet transform is an inner product of an input signal with a family of analysis primitives called chirplets.

In mathematics, a compact (topological) group is a topological group whose topology is compact. Compact groups are a natural generalization of finite groups with the discrete topology and have properties that carry over in significant fashion. Compact groups have a well-understood theory, in relation to group actions and representation theory.

In mathematics, convolution is a mathematical operation on two functions that produces a third function that expresses how the shape of one is modified by the other. The term convolution refers to both the result function and to the process of computing it. It is defined as the integral of the product of the two functions after one is reversed and shifted. And the integral is evaluated for all values of shift, producing the convolution function.

In mathematics, the Dirac delta function is a generalized function or distribution introduced by physicist Paul Dirac. It is used to model the density of an idealized point mass or point charge as a function equal to zero everywhere except for zero and whose integral over the entire real line is equal to one. As there is no function that has these properties, the computations made by theoretical physicists appeared to mathematicians as nonsense until the introduction of distributions by Laurent Schwartz to formalize and validate the computations. As a distribution, the Dirac delta function is a linear functional that maps every function to its value at zero. The Kronecker delta function, which is usually defined on a discrete domain and takes values 0 and 1, is a discrete analog of the Dirac delta function.

In mathematics, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) converts a finite sequence of equally-spaced samples of a function into a same-length sequence of equally-spaced samples of the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT), which is a complex-valued function of frequency. The interval at which the DTFT is sampled is the reciprocal of the duration of the input sequence. An inverse DFT is a Fourier series, using the DTFT samples as coefficients of complex sinusoids at the corresponding DTFT frequencies. It has the same sample-values as the original input sequence. The DFT is therefore said to be a frequency domain representation of the original input sequence. If the original sequence spans all the non-zero values of a function, its DTFT is continuous, and the DFT provides discrete samples of one cycle. If the original sequence is one cycle of a periodic function, the DFT provides all the non-zero values of one DTFT cycle.

The Fourier operator is the kernel of the Fredholm integral of the first kind that defines the continuous Fourier transform.

In mathematics, a Fourier transform (FT) is a mathematical transform that decomposes functions depending on space or time into functions depending on spatial or temporal frequency, such as the expression of a musical chord in terms of the volumes and frequencies of its constituent notes. The term Fourier transform refers to both the frequency domain representation and the mathematical operation that associates the frequency domain representation to a function of space or time.

A frequency-selective surface (FSS) is any thin, repetitive surface designed to reflect, transmit or absorb electromagnetic fields based on the frequency of the field. In this sense, an FSS is a type of optical filter or metal-mesh optical filters in which the filtering is accomplished by virtue of the regular, periodic pattern on the surface of the FSS. Though not explicitly mentioned in the name, FSS's also have properties which vary with incidence angle and polarization as well - these are unavoidable consequences of the way in which FSS's are constructed. Frequency-selective surfaces have been most commonly used in the radio frequency region of the electromagnetic spectrum and find use in applications as diverse as the aforementioned microwave oven, antenna radomes and modern metamaterials. Sometimes frequency selective surfaces are referred to simply as periodic surfaces and are a 2-dimensional analog of the new periodic volumes known as photonic crystals.

The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental, is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present. In terms of a superposition of sinusoids, the fundamental frequency is the lowest frequency sinusoidal in the sum of harmonically related frequencies, or the frequency of the difference between adjacent frequencies. In some contexts, the fundamental is usually abbreviated as f0, indicating the lowest frequency counting from zero. In other contexts, it is more common to abbreviate it as f1, the first harmonic.

Instantaneous phase and frequency are important concepts in signal processing that occur in the context of the representation and analysis of time-varying functions. The instantaneous phase of a complex-valued function s(t), is the real-valued function:

In mathematics and physics, Laplace's equation is a second-order partial differential equation named after Pierre-Simon Laplace who first studied its properties. This is often written as

In signal processing, the overlap–add method is an efficient way to evaluate the discrete convolution of a very long signal with a finite impulse response (FIR) filter :

In signal processing, Overlap–save is the traditional name for an efficient way to evaluate the discrete convolution between a very long signal and a finite impulse response (FIR) filter :

A periodic function is a function that repeats its values at regular intervals, for example, the trigonometric functions, which repeat at intervals of 2π radians. Periodic functions are used throughout science to describe oscillations, waves, and other phenomena that exhibit periodicity. Any function that is not periodic is called aperiodic.

A planar Fourier capture array (PFCA) is a tiny camera that requires no mirror, lens, focal length, or moving parts. It is composed of angle-sensitive pixels, which can be manufactured in unmodified CMOS processes.

In mathematics, specifically in harmonic analysis and the theory of topological groups, Pontryagin duality explains the general properties of the Fourier transform on locally compact abelian groups, such as , the circle, or finite cyclic groups. The Pontryagin duality theorem itself states that locally compact abelian groups identify naturally with their bidual.

In physics, the reciprocal lattice represents the Fourier transform of another lattice. In normal usage, the initial lattice is usually a periodic spatial function in real-space and is also known as the direct lattice. While the direct lattice exists in real-space and is what one would commonly understand as a physical lattice, the reciprocal lattice exists in reciprocal space. The reciprocal of a reciprocal lattice is the original direct lattice, since the two are Fourier transforms of each other. Mathematically, direct and reciprocal lattice vectors represent covariant and contravariant vectors, respectively.

In mathematics, a rectangular mask short-time Fourier transform has the simple form of short-time Fourier transform. Other types of the STFT may require more computation time than the rec-STFT. Define its mask function

In mathematics, Schwartz space is the function space of all functions whose derivatives are rapidly decreasing. This space has the important property that the Fourier transform is an automorphism on this space. This property enables one, by duality, to define the Fourier transform for elements in the dual space of , that is, for tempered distributions. A function in the Schwartz space is sometimes called a Schwartz function.

The Short-time Fourier transform (STFT), is a Fourier-related transform used to determine the sinusoidal frequency and phase content of local sections of a signal as it changes over time. In practice, the procedure for computing STFTs is to divide a longer time signal into shorter segments of equal length and then compute the Fourier transform separately on each shorter segment. This reveals the Fourier spectrum on each shorter segment. One then usually plots the changing spectra as a function of time, known as a spectrogram or waterfall plot, such as commonly used in Software Defined Radio based spectrum displays. Full bandwidth displays covering the whole range of an SDR commonly use FFTs with 2^24 points on desktop computers.
The spectral concentration problem in Fourier analysis refers to finding a time sequence of a given length whose discrete Fourier transform is maximally localized on a given frequency interval, as measured by the spectral concentration.

The power spectrum of a time series describes the distribution of power into frequency components composing that signal. According to Fourier analysis, any physical signal can be decomposed into a number of discrete frequencies, or a spectrum of frequencies over a continuous range. The statistical average of a certain signal or sort of signal as analyzed in terms of its frequency content, is called its spectrum.

The Fourier transform of a function of time, s(t), is a complex-valued function of frequency, S(f), often referred to as a frequency spectrum. Any linear time-invariant operation on s(t) produces a new spectrum of the form H(f)•S(f), which changes the relative magnitudes and/or angles (phase) of the non-zero values of S(f). Any other type of operation creates new frequency components that may be referred to as spectral leakage in the broadest sense. Sampling, for instance, produces leakage, which we call aliases of the original spectral component. For Fourier transform purposes, sampling is modeled as a product between s(t) and a Dirac comb function. The spectrum of a product is the convolution between S(f) and another function, which inevitably creates the new frequency components. But the term 'leakage' usually refers to the effect of windowing, which is the product of s(t) with a different kind of function, the window function. Window functions happen to have finite duration, but that is not necessary to create leakage. Multiplication by a time-variant function is sufficient.

In mathematics and physical science, spherical harmonics are special functions defined on the surface of a sphere. They are often employed in solving partial differential equations in many scientific fields.

In mathematics, a topological group is a group G together with a topology on G such that both the group's binary operation and the function mapping group elements to their respective inverses are continuous functions with respect to the topology. A topological group is a mathematical object with both an algebraic structure and a topological structure. Thus, one may perform algebraic operations, because of the group structure, and one may talk about continuous functions, because of the topology.

In mathematics, a unit circle is a circle of unit radius—that is, a radius of 1. Frequently, especially in trigonometry, the unit circle is the circle of radius 1 centered at the origin in the Cartesian coordinate system in the Euclidean plane. In topology, it is often denoted as S1 because it is a one-dimensional unit n-sphere.

In mathematics, the Dirac delta function is a generalized function or distribution introduced by physicist Paul Dirac. It is used to model the density of an idealized point mass or point charge as a function equal to zero everywhere except for zero and whose integral over the entire real line is equal to one. As there is no function that has these properties, the computations made by theoretical physicists appeared to mathematicians as nonsense until the introduction of distributions by Laurent Schwartz to formalize and validate the computations. As a distribution, the Dirac delta function is a linear functional that maps every function to its value at zero. The Kronecker delta function, which is usually defined on a discrete domain and takes values 0 and 1, is a discrete analog of the Dirac delta function.

In signal processing and statistics, a window function is a mathematical function that is zero-valued outside of some chosen interval, normally symmetric around the middle of the interval, usually near a maximum in the middle, and usually tapering away from the middle. Mathematically, when another function or waveform/data-sequence is "multiplied" by a window function, the product is also zero-valued outside the interval: all that is left is the part where they overlap, the "view through the window". Equivalently, and in actual practice, the segment of data within the window is first isolated, and then only that data is multiplied by the window function values. Thus, tapering, not segmentation, is the main purpose of window functions.