Morlet Wavelets in Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

Wavelets offer significant advantages for the analysis of problems in quantum mechanics. Because wavelets are localized in both time and frequency they avoid certain subtle but potentially fatal conceptual errors that can result from the use of plane wave or δ function decomposition. Morlet wavelets in particular are well-suited for this work: as Gaussians, they have a simple analytic form and they work well with Feynman path integrals. But to take full advantage of Morlet wavelets we need to supply an explicit form for the inverse Morlet transform and a manifestly covariant form for the four-dimensional Morlet wavelet. We construct both here.

Quanta 2012; 1: 58–70.