- Open Access
Analytical singular-value structure of analytic-continuation kernels from Slepian information theory
APS Open Sci. 1, 000145 – Published 21 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8yw5-dhd4
Abstract
Analytic continuation from imaginary-time Green’s functions to real-frequency spectra is a central ill-posed inverse problem in quantum many-body physics. We show that the thermal kernel admits an analytical generalized singular-value structure once its purely dynamical part is separated from the statistical weight imposed by the heat bath. The dynamical kernel is the imaginary-bandwidth continuation of Slepian’s finite Fourier transform and is governed by the same Sturm-Liouville algebra that yields prolate spheroidal wave functions. Fermionic and bosonic statistics then enter as gauge transformations of the frequency-space inner product, giving a generalized singular system and self-adjoint effective potentials in the corresponding weighted space. The Shannon number, , fixes the upper information capacity of this pure Laplace channel. Finally, the optimal sampling points are obtained as eigenvalues of a Legendre colleague matrix, giving a deterministic compressed-sensing grid without iterative root searches.
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