Clifford algebras, Fourier transforms and quantum mechanics

In this review, an overview is given of several recent generalizations of the Fourier transform, related to either the Lie algebra sl_2 or the Lie superalgebra osp(1|2). In the former case, one obtains scalar generalizations of the Fourier transform, including the fractional Fourier transform, the Dunkl transform, the radially deformed Fourier transform and the super Fourier transform. In the latter case, one has to use the framework of Clifford analysis and arrives at the Clifford-Fourier transform and the radially deformed hypercomplex Fourier transform. A detailed exposition of all these transforms is given, with emphasis on aspects such as eigenfunctions and spectrum of the transform, characterization of the integral kernel and connection with various special functions.Comment: Review paper, 39 pages, to appear in Math. Methods. Appl. Sc

The cylindrical Fourier transform

In this paper we devise a so-called cylindrical Fourier transform within the Clifford analysis context. The idea is the following: for a fixed vector in the image space the level surfaces of the traditional Fourier kernel are planes perpendicular to that fixed vector. For this Fourier kernel we now substitute a new Clifford-Fourier kernel such that, again for a fixed vector in the image space, its phase is constant on co-axial cylinders w.r.t. that fixed vector. The point is that when restricting to dimension two this new cylindrical Fourier transform coincides with the earlier introduced Clifford-Fourier transform.We are now faced with the following situation: in dimension greater than two we have a first Clifford-Fourier transform with elegant properties but no kernel in closed form, and a second cylindrical one with a kernel in closed form but more complicated calculation formulae. In dimension two both transforms coincide. The paper concludes with the calculation of the cylindrical Fourier spectrum of an L2-basis consisting of generalized Clifford-Hermite functions

Quantum Fourier transform revisited

The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is one of the most successful numerical algorithms of the 20th century and has found numerous applications in many branches of computational science and engineering. The FFT algorithm can be derived from a particular matrix decomposition of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix. In this paper, we show that the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) can be derived by further decomposing the diagonal factors of the FFT matrix decomposition into products of matrices with Kronecker product structure. We analyze the implication of this Kronecker product structure on the discrete Fourier transform of rank-1 tensors on a classical computer. We also explain why such a structure can take advantage of an important quantum computer feature that enables the QFT algorithm to attain an exponential speedup on a quantum computer over the FFT algorithm on a classical computer. Further, the connection between the matrix decomposition of the DFT matrix and a quantum circuit is made. We also discuss a natural extension of a radix-2 QFT decomposition to a radix-d QFT decomposition. No prior knowledge of quantum computing is required to understand what is presented in this paper. Yet, we believe this paper may help readers to gain some rudimentary understanding of the nature of quantum computing from a matrix computation point of view