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Physics LibreTexts

11: Discrete Fourier Transforms

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The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is a discretized version of the Fourier transform, which is widely used in numerical simulation and analysis. Given a set of N numbers {f0,f1,,fN1}, the DFT produces another set of N numbers N numbers {F0,F1,,FN1}, defined as follows:

DFT{f0,f1,,fN1}={F0,F1,,FN1}whereFn=N1m=0e2πimnNfm.

The inverse of this transformation is the Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT):

IDFT{F0,F1,,FN1}={f0,f1,,fN1}wherefm=1NN1n=0e2πimnNFn.

The inverse relationship between the DFT and the IDFT is straightforward to prove, by using the identity

N1m=0e±2πim(nn)N=Nδnn,

where δnn denotes the Kronecker delta. This identity is derived from the geometric series formula.


This page titled 11: Discrete Fourier Transforms is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Y. D. Chong via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.

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