Skip to main content
Log in

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the sense of Beurling

  • Published:
Journal d'Analyse Mathématique Aims and scope

Abstract

We shed new light on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the sense of Beurling, by offering a fundamentally different proof which allows us to weaken the assumptions rather substantially. The new formulation is pretty much optimal, as can be seen from examples. Our arguments involve Fourier and Mellin transforms. We also introduce a version which applies to two given functions. Finally, we show how our approach applies in the higher dimensional setting.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. M. Benedicks, The support of functions and distributions with a spectral gap, Math. Scand. 55 (1984), 285–309.

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. M. Benedicks and H. Hedenmalm, Private communication.

  3. A. Beurling, The Collected Works of Arne Beurling, Vol. 2, Harmonic Analysis, Birkhäuser Boston, Inc., Boston, MA, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  4. A. Bonami, B. Demange, and Ph. Jaming, Hermite functions and uncertainty principles for the Fourier and the windowed Fourier transforms, Rev. Mat. Iberoamericana 19 (2003), 23–55.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. F. Canto-Martín, H. Hedenmalm, and A. Montes-Rodríguez, Perron-Frobenius operators and the Klein-Gordon equation, J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS), to appear.

  6. L. Carleson, Selected Problems on Exceptional Sets, D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., Princeton, N.J.-Toronto, Ont.-London, 1967.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. G. H. Hardy, A theorem concerning Fourier transforms, J. London Math. Soc. 8 (1933), 227–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. V. Havin and B. Jöricke, The Uncertainty Principle in Harmonic Analysis, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1994.

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. H. Hedenmalm and A. Montes-Rodríguez, Heisenberg uniqueness pairs and the Klein-Gordon equation, Ann. of Math. (2) 173 (2011), 1507–1527.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. L. Hörmander, A uniqueness theorem of Beurling for Fourier transform pairs, Ark. Mat. 29 (1991), 237–240.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Haakan Hedenmalm.

Additional information

In memory of Boris Korenblum

The author was supported by the Göran Gustafsson Foundation (KVA) and by Vetenskapsrådet (VR).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hedenmalm, H. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the sense of Beurling. JAMA 118, 691–702 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11854-012-0048-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11854-012-0048-9

Keywords

Navigation