Paley–Wiener theorem

In mathematics, a Paley–Wiener theorem is a theorem that relates decay properties of a function or distribution at infinity with analyticity of its Fourier transform. It is named after Raymond Paley (1907–1933) and Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) who, in 1934, introduced various versions of the theorem. The original theorems did not use the language of distributions, and instead applied to square-integrable functions. The first such theorem using distributions was due to Laurent Schwartz. These theorems heavily rely on the triangle inequality (to interchange the absolute value and integration).

The original work by Paley and Wiener is also used as a namesake in the fields of control theory and harmonic analysis; introducing the Paley–Wiener condition for spectral factorization and the Paley–Wiener criterion for non-harmonic Fourier series respectively. These are related mathematical concepts that place the decay properties of a function in context of stability problems.