The Fourier Ratio: A Unifying Measure of Complexity for Recovery, Localization, and Learning

Abstract: We introduce a generalized Fourier ratio, the (\ell^1/\ell^2) norm ratio of coefficients in an \emph{arbitrary} orthonormal system, as a single, basis-invariant measure of \emph{effective dimension} that governs fundamental limits across signal recovery, localization, and learning. First, we prove that functions with small Fourier ratio can be stably recovered from random missing samples via (\ell^1) minimization, extending and clarifying compressed sensing guarantees for general bounded orthonormal systems. Second, we establish a sharp \emph{localization obstruction}: any attempt to localize recovery to subslices of a product space necessarily inflates the Fourier ratio by a factor scaling with the square root of the slice count, demonstrating that global complexity cannot be distributed locally. Finally, we show that the same parameter controls key complexity-theoretic measures: it provides explicit upper bounds on Kolmogorov rate-distortion description length and on the statistical query (SQ) dimension of the associated function class. These results unify analytic, algorithmic, and learning-theoretic constraints under a single complexity parameter, revealing the Fourier ratio as a fundamental invariant in information-theoretic signal processing.