Skip to main content
1 of 6
Phil Isett
  • 2.2k
  • 1
  • 24
  • 27

If your purpose of calculating the dual of the torus is to have the Fourier inversion formula, I just want to add the remark that you don't need to go through all the machinery of locally compact topological groups in order to prove the basic results of Fourier analysis.

For the circle, one needs only note that the distribution $u(x) = \sum_{n \in {\mathbb Z}} e^{2 \pi i n x}$ on the torus ${\mathbb R}/{\mathbb Z}$ is invariant under multiplication by $e^{2 \pi i x}$, and is therefore a multiple of the delta-function $\delta(x)$ -- integrating against the smooth function $1$, you see that, in fact, $u(x) = \delta(x)$. Substituting into the general formula $f(x) = \int_{{\mathbb R}/{\mathbb Z}} f(y) \delta(x - y) dy$ gives the Fourier inversion formula.

The above is really just for a conceptual point of view, since it's unnecessary to quote distribution theory for this purpose. To give a direct proof, suppose $f(x)$ is smooth; after translating, it is enough to show that $f(0) = \sum_{n \in {\mathbb Z}} \hat{f}(n) = \sum_n \int f(x) e^{- 2 \pi i n x} dx$ (which converges absolutely because you can integrate by parts enough times to prove decay of $\hat{f}(n)$). We can assume without loss of generality that $f(0) = 0$ by subtracting the constant $f(0)$ (this is how we know "the constant" in the inversion formula is correct and corresponds to testing against $1$ in the previous argument).

In the case $f(0) = 0$, we can write $f(x) = (e^{2 \pi i x} - 1) g(x)$ for some smooth function $g(x)$ (which proves the previous claim that if $e^{2 \pi i x} u = u$ then $u(x) = C \delta(x)$). But then,

$\sum_{n \in {\mathbb Z}} \hat{f}(n) = \sum_{n \in {\mathbb Z}} (\hat{g}(n - 1) - \hat{g}(n))$

but this is $0$ because $\hat{g}$ is integrable. (In particular, assuming $f$ to be $C^\infty$ was certainly unnecessary, and the Fourier inversion formula holds pointwise.)

Another remark about distribution theory here is that for the argument of KConrad above, the equation $\gamma'(x + s) = \gamma'(s) \gamma(x)$'' already makes sense when $\gamma$ is a distribution (in particular, if $\gamma$ is continuous). But the way it makes sense is by integrating by parts, which is largely equivalent to the integration performed the accepted proof. One can use a very similar argument to his and show that the only distributions solving $\gamma(x + y) = \gamma(x)\gamma(y)$ are exponentials.

Phil Isett
  • 2.2k
  • 1
  • 24
  • 27