Published January 2005 | Version v1
Journal article

Analysis of superoscillatory wave functions

  • 1. Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1 (Canada)

Description

Surprisingly, differentiable functions are able to oscillate arbitrarily faster than their highest Fourier component would suggest. The phenomenon is called superoscillation. Recently, a practical method for calculating superoscillatory functions was presented and it was shown that superoscillatory quantum mechanical wave functions should exhibit a number of counter-intuitive physical effects. Following up on this work, we here present more general methods which allow the calculation of superoscillatory wave functions with custom-designed physical properties. We give concrete examples and we prove results about the limits to superoscillatory behavior. We also give a simple and intuitive new explanation for the exponential computational cost of superoscillations

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Journal of Mathematical Physics
Journal Volume
46
Journal Issue
1
Journal Page Range
p. 012101-012101.18
ISSN
0022-2488
CODEN
JMAPAQ

INIS

Country of Publication
United States
Country of Input or Organization
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
INIS RN
36052493
Subject category
S71: CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS;
Descriptors DEI
FOURIER TRANSFORMATION; OSCILLATIONS; PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; QUANTUM MECHANICS; TOPOLOGY; WAVE FUNCTIONS
Descriptors DEC
FUNCTIONS; INTEGRAL TRANSFORMATIONS; MATHEMATICS; MECHANICS; TRANSFORMATIONS

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2005 American Institute of Physics