The rectangular function (also known as the rectangle function, rect function, Pi function, Heaviside Pi function,[1]gate function, unit pulse, or the normalized boxcar function) is defined as[2]
The unit Rectangular function (in which T=1) along with the piecwise definedsplines that result from successive convolutions of the Rectangular function with itself.
A convolution the discontinuous rectangular function with itself results in the triangular function, which is a continuous function:
Self convolution of the rectangular function applied twice yields a continuous and differentiably continous parabolic spline:
A self convolution of the rectangular function applied three times yields a continuous, and a second order differentiably continous cubic spline:
A self convolution of the rectangular function applied four times yields a continuous, and a third order differentiably continous 4th order spline:
Since the Fourier Transform of the Rectangular function is the Sinc function, the Convolution theorem mean that the Fourier transform of pulses resulting from successive convolution of the Rectangular function with itself is simply the Sinc function to the order of the number of times that the convolution function was applied + 1 (i.e., the Fourier transform of the Triangular function is Sinc2, the Fourier transform of parabolic spline resulting from two successive convolutions of the Rectangular function with itself is Sinc3, etc.)
The pulse function may also be expressed as a limit of a rational function:
Demonstration of validity
First, we consider the case where Notice that the term is always positive for integer However, and hence approaches zero for large
It follows that:
Second, we consider the case where Notice that the term is always positive for integer However, and hence grows very large for large
It follows that:
Third, we consider the case where We may simply substitute in our equation:
We see that it satisfies the definition of the pulse function. Therefore,
Dirac delta function
The rectangle function can be used to represent the Dirac delta function.[12] Specifically,For a function , its average over the width around 0 in the function domain is calculated as,
To obtain , the following limit is applied,
and this can be written in terms of the Dirac delta function as, The Fourier transform of the Dirac delta function is
where the sinc function here is the normalized sinc function. Because the first zero of the sinc function is at and goes to infinity, the Fourier transform of is
means that the frequency spectrum of the Dirac delta function is infinitely broad. As a pulse is shorten in time, it is larger in spectrum.
↑ Khare, Kedar; Butola, Mansi; Rajora, Sunaina (2023). "Chapter 2.4 Sampling by Averaging, Distributions and Delta Function". Fourier Optics and Computational Imaging (2nded.). Springer. pp.15–16. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-18353-9. ISBN978-3-031-18353-9.
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