Exact Reconstruction of Extended Exponential Sums using Rational Approximation of their Fourier Coefficients

Abstract: In this paper we derive a new recovery procedure for the reconstruction of extended exponential sums of the form $y(t) = \sum_{j=1}^{M} \left( \sum_{m=0}^{n_j} \, \gamma_{j,m} \, t^{m} \right) {\mathrm e}^{2\pi \lambda_j t}$, where the frequency parameters $\lambda_{j} \in {\mathbb C}$ are pairwise distinct. For the reconstruction we employ a finite set of classical Fourier coefficients of $y$ with regard to a finite interval $[0,P] \subset {\mathbb R}$ with $P>0$. Our method requires at most $2N+2$ Fourier coefficients $c_{k}(y)$ to recover all parameters of $y$, where $N:=\sum_{j=1}^{M} (1+n_{j})$ denotes the order of $y$. The recovery is based on the observation that for $\lambda_{j} \not\in \frac{{\mathrm i}}{P} {\mathbb Z}$ the terms of $y$ possess Fourier coefficients with rational structure. We employ a recently proposed stable iterative rational approximation algorithm in [12]. If a sufficiently large set of $L$ Fourier coefficients of $y$ is available (i.e., $L > 2N+2$), then our recovery method automatically detects the number $M$ of terms of $y$, the multiplicities $n_{j}$ for $j=1, \ldots , M$, as well as all parameters $\lambda_{j}$, $j=1, \ldots , M$ and $ \gamma_{j,m}$ $j=1, \ldots , M$, $m=0, \ldots , n_{j}$, determining $y$. Therefore our method provides a new stable alternative to the known numerical approaches for the recovery of exponential sums that are based on Prony's method.