Fourier Transforms of Generalized Low-Dimensional Fractals

ROIDON KUO-HWA CHUNG Supervisor: ITAY YAVIN

Department of Physics and Astronomy 2013

Abstract We study some of the intrinsic properties, such as periodic composition, of fractals sets and functions obtained by performing Fourier analysis on these systems. The information derived from this process help us understand the geometric and scaling nature of some self-similar physical systems such as crystal structures, distribution of stellar mass and turbulence. We begin with simple examples such as fractal functions that exist in . The Fourier transform of these functions were also noted to display self-similarity. This could hint that there is a high probability that other fractals would also follow this trend. We go on to demonstrate transforms of geometric fractals like Sierpinskis Triangle, whose functions are not trivial. A discrete Fourier transform (DFT) was needed to map sampling coordinates to Fourier space. Just as the case for the fractal functions, the Sierpinskis Triangle also yielded self-similar properties. The results strengthen the claim that Fourier transforms of fractals also possess self-similarities and clarifies the definition of what it means to be self similar.

Contents
1 Introduction 2 Definitions
2.1 2.2 Fractals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fourier Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4 5
5 7

3 Fourier Transform of Fractal Functions 8 3.1 Riemann function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3.2 Weierstrass function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3.3 Continuous and not differentiable functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4 Fourier Transform of the Sierpinskis Triangle 4.1 The Sierpinskis Triangle . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Discrete fourier transforms . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Pascals triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 The coordinates of the triangle . . . . . . . . . 4.5 DFT of the Sierpinskis triangle . . . . . . . . 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
14 15 16 17 18

5 Generalized Fractals and the Efficiency of the Fourier Transform 6 Bibliography 7 Appendix

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Chapter 1 Introduction
It often happens in nature that a physical system takes on irregular geometry which looks selfrepeating upon scaling; like clouds. The existence of these non-Euclidean patterns challenges us to study them and to investigate some of the key properties of their compositions. These patterns are called fractals coined by the mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot [1]. Some fractals sets are curves or surfaces; others are disconnected dusts that take on very illustrative shapes. A proposed interesting method of studying these fractals might be to perform Fourier analysis on them. This process can unlock a different way to analyze their configurations by transforming the sets into configuration space and by heavily amplifying their compositions. Understanding the composition of fractals gives a better way to define what gives a fractal its fractal -like features. To begin attempting Fourier transforms on generalized fractals, we start with simple examples such as fractal functions that exist in real space . A good example of fractal functions are the Riemann or Weierstrass functions since they posses self-similar mapping of elements. These functions also belong to a special group of functions are continuous everywhere but not differentiable. We can take some of the obsevations we achieved from the Fourier fractal functions and make a hypothesis of what to expect when we transform the generalized fractals. Taking a fourier transform of a geometric fractals is not entirely trivial. We first need to specify a coordinate basis and a way to predict each of the fractals coordinates. By doing so, we have a discrete way of mapping each of the coordinates to Fourier space and accomplishing a Fourier transform. Since finding coordinates for a regular triangle is fairly trivial, the Sierpinskis Triangle is used as an example of a simple fractal system which we can find coordinates for and transform them. The only task lies in ommiting certain coordinates from a regular triangle to model a Sierpinskis triangle, which can be done by a neat little trick using Pascals triangle.

Chapter 2 Definitions
2.1 Fractals
Our whole study revolves around the main subject on interest; fractals. But what is a fractal? Its patterns are certainly easy to recognize but unexpectedly difficult to formally define. So let us start with an informal definition. The key idea in the definition of a fractal is "self-similarity". What this means is that the object looks the same on every scale, independent of the magnification. Consider a closed set of objects , that we can contract or dilate it by some value the set self-similar if it composed of a number of nonoverlapping subsets of which is congruent to scaled by the some factor . . We can call , each

Certainly if we scale a self similar set, we would also be interested as to how its dimensions (area and length) scale as well. Thus, we can define a ratio that compares the scaling of these two parameters for a self-similar set, called the Hausdorff or fractal dimension, as

, where

is the area scaling factor and

is the length scaling factor of the self similar set.

The following figure is an illustration of how the Sierpinskis triangle scales with each iteration.

Note how the side length of the shaded region scales by a factor of 2 for every iteration, while the area of the shaded region scales by a factor of 3 for every iteration. Its fractal dimension can be calculated as

The following figure is an illustration of how the Vicsek fractal scales with every iteration.

Note how the length of the shaded region scales by a factor of 3 for every iteration, while the area of the shaded region scales by a factor of 5 for every iteration. Its fractal dimension can be calculated as

It is also possible to describe a topological dimension of a set, which is the conventional way of viewing the geometric dimension.
A set has topological dimension if each point in has arbitrarily small neighborhoods whose boundaries meet in a set of dimension , and is the least nonnegative integer for which this holds.

The topological dimension does not reflect the amount of fine detail present in . This is because takes values in the natural numbers. But when we deal with self repeating/similar sets that are infinitely magnifiable, we deal with an infinite amount of detail for that set. Thus, A fractal is a subset of a Euclidean space whose Hausdorff (fractal) dimension and topological dimension are not equal.

2.2 Fourier Transforms

A first look into Fourier Transforms is to start with the concept of periodicity and functions that exhibit a repeating pattern. Periodic behaviour manifests itself in countless amounts of physical systems, anywhere from springs to atoms. In our study, we are interested in the periodic behaviour of how fractals reiterate their geometry through any magnification. Generally speaking, we think about periodic phenomena that is dependant through time or in space. Just before 1800, the French mathematician Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier made an astonishing discovery. Through his investigations into the partial differential equations modeling heat propagation, Fourier claimed that every function could be represented by an infinite series of elementary trigonometric functions: sines and cosines [4]. Any period function can be expressed as a sum of sines and cosines with period T , where the coefficient is given as We call this the Fourier Series. But how general is this? What would happen if we had started periodizing any function with the intention of letting ? That is, we scale the Fourier coefficients by . ( ) In the limit as , we can change . Hence, to be

We define the Fourier Transform of a function To recover from

, we can use the Inverse Fourier Transform

Changing the variables of integration transforms a function that is dependent in time to another function dependent in frequency . Similarly, a transform could be made of a function dependent of position into its momentum function . We say the Fourier transform maps a set of coordinates into its configuration space.

Chapter 3 Fourier Transform of Fractal Functions

3.1 Riemann function
A mandatory requirement to apply the Fourier Transform is that a there needs to be a function to apply it to. For our purposes, there are quite a few functions that we can transform with self similar fractal features. One of the earliest fractal functions to be discovered was the Riemann function, circa 1861, in Bernhard Riemanns post doctoral thesis [5]. Riemanns function is the function defined by

Riemann hypothesized that this function was continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere, this property gave it its fractal qualities. Unfortunately, he could not prove his assumption.

Figure 3: The Riemann function

on the real plane

To achieve its Fourier transform, , where is the Dirac delta function ( )

Diracs delta function centered around

is defined by the following property ,

You can view this function as a limit of a Gaussian To understand what is happening to this fractal, we can approximate the Dirac in terms of a Gaussian and thus, (
( ) ( )

Figure 4: The Fourier transform

on a log plot for

The Dirac function causes sharp peaks around values of . When we approximate this as Gaussians, we cause an open range of frequencies that are normally distributed around . The log plot demonstrates a spread of frequencies around in Fourier space, which decreases in amplitude at a rate of . An interesting observation could be made upon magnification of as ; we noticed that the pattern still continues on even at smaller scales. This leads us to conclude that even the Fourier Transform of the Riemann function possess quasi-fractal properties (only if you scale k). Moreover, it tells us that for an infinitely bound fractal, the composition in configuration space leads to an infinite number of subsets (or peak frequencies). This agrees with our initial definition of self-similarity.

Reverting back using the inverse Fourier Transform, to see what happens to the function after we have made this approximation (
( ) ( )

The tilde is a book keeping index on and

(

. Evaluate this integral by substituting

Figure 5: The approximate of

using the Gaussian function for

We may now choose to a desirable width needed. The amplitude of the first order peaks quickly decay into a lower amplitude and a comparably smoother peak. Its fractal like qualities decay dependent on the rate of , as and we would expect a much smoother curve with an exponentially decaying amplitude. Many fractal patterns occur in nature, but none are infinitely magnifiable. Using approximations in its Fourier space is a good tool for modeling these decaying fractals.

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3.2 Weierstrass function

For more evidence on our previous conclusion, we can perform the same transform to another fractal function called Weierstrass function. On July 18, 1872 Karl Weierstrass presented in a lecture at the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin another example of a continuous but differentiable nowhere function [6].

For , and and odd integer.

Figure 6: The Weierstrass function

on the real plane

To achieve its Fourier transform,

, where

is the Dirac delta function

To understand what is happening to this fractal, we can approximate the Dirac in terms of a Gaussian, ( )

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Figure 7: The Fourier transform

on a log plot for

Just as the Riemann function, the Dirac terms causes sharp peaks around values of . When we approximate this as Gaussian functions, we cause an open range of frequencies that are normally distributed around . The largest difference in this function is that the distance between the peaks are not evenly spaced, as opposed to Riemanns which had a constant distance of . The distance between the frequency peaks in Weierstrass function increase with . This observation can conclude that the amplitude for the original function is the distance between subsequent peaks in Fourier space. Just as before, if you scale . We would notice a new peak at distance from the previous peak. This occurs indefinitely, showing self-similarity. Reverting back using the inverse Fourier Transform after we have made the approximation, ( and

Evaluate this integral by substituting

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3.3 Continuous and not differentiable functions

Both examples of our fractal functions belong to a special group of functions that are continuous but not differentiable. Riemann was one of the earliest to propose such a function since it arose as connection to his theta function. He never gave a proof, but mentioned this example in one of his lectures [7]. It wasnt until 1969, that Joseph Gerver proved that the function is actually differentiable at all rational mutiples of of the form with and odd integers, and then by showing that is not differentiable in all of the remaining cases [8]. Even though fractal geometry had not been developed around 1860s, there were well known examples floating around in other branches of mathematics. The absence of proof, until much later, sparked the interest of Weierstrass who came across his first example of a continuous but differentiable nowhere. For the proof that he found using the Weierstrass M-Test, we refer to Thim[9]. One question remains; both these functions exhibit self-similar properties. So are all continuous everywhere, differentiable nowhere functions fractals? The simple answer is no. As a counter example, there exists a curve that is continuous everywhere, differentiable nowhere called the Takagi curve whose graph is not a fractal. It is defined by Maddock [10] writes in his paper about a theorem (Theorem 1.2) saying that the graph of the Takagi curve has a Hausdorff dimension of 1 and a topological dimension of 1 as well, in which he prooves in his paper. This conflicts with the definition of a fractal.

Figure 8: The graphical construction of the Takagi curve [11]

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Chapter 4 Fourier Transform of the Sierpinskis Triangle

4.1 The Sierpinskis Triangle
We shall now deviate from our view of functions as fractals and move onto a much broader geometric view of fractals, namely the Sierpinskis triangle. As shown in Figure 1, it is possible to construct such triangle on a plane starting with an equilateral triangle of side length 1. We can call this triangle . Now, can be subdivided into four smaller triangles using lines joining the midpoints of each side length. This means each of the smaller triangles now have a side length of and there lies a smaller triangle in the middle that is rotated about degrees which we can omit. After it is removed, we call the remainder , a subset of . We can keep iterating this process indefinitely, subdividing it into smaller triangles. If we iterate the triangle amount of times; the set will consist of amount of triangles with sides . Thus, the total area of is which converges to as . The total area doesnt really help if we want to measure the size of since the area is used as a way to measure the size of a 2 dimensional set and a line which has dimension 1 has an area of 0. We can conclude that the Sierpinskis Triangle has a dimension somewhere in between 1 and 2. A way around this dilemma was proposed by Hausdorff in which he allowed the dimension of a set to be a fraction. As in our theory in the introduction, the Hausdorff dimension of the Sierpinskis triangle was calculated as But how would you going around performing a Fourier Transform on a geometric set, that is the Sierpinskis Triangle? In this chapter we will show that it is possible to model the triangle discretely with a set of coordinates that we can transform into Fourier space. Since we are performing the transform discretely, we cannot use the continuous definition of a Fourier Transform anymore.

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4.2 Discrete fourier transforms

It is possible to estimate the Fourier transform of a function by sampling a number of its points at some interval. Suppose that we have number of sampled values from the continuous function , is the discrete sampling of , where is the sampling interval. If is nonzero for only a fintite amount of time, then we can say that the whole range of points contains in that finite amount of time. But if the function goes on forever, then we are supposed to choose sampling points that represent the behaviour of at all other times. With numbers of input, we will be able to produce no more than independent numbers of output. Instead of estimating the Fourier transform at all values of , we can seek estimates at the discrete values

Taking the approximation of the Fourier integral by a discrete sum:

Thus, the discrete Fourier transform is defined by and discretely maps points from the function to points in . Note that the discrete Fourier transform has symmetry properties almost exactly the same as the continuous Fourier transform. For further reading, please refer to Press et Al. [12]

Figure 9: (a) a function with sampling points in the interval of . (b) the discrete Fourier Transfrom of in a comparison to the true Fourier transform. [13]
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4.3 Pascals triangle

Our challenge is to now find a good interval in which we can sample a number of points of Sierpinskis Triangle. But it is possible to employ a neat trick where we can discretize the triangle such that it already encompasses a good enough interval to sample. We can do so by modelling the Sierpinskis triangle by Pascals triangle. Pascals triangle is a triangle in which the outer edges filled with 1s and each inner element is the sum of its upper adjacent elements.

Figure 10: Pascals Triangle for the first 5 rows

If we make a black dot wherever there is an odd number, and leave blank wherever there is an even number, we will get a geometric arrangement in the plane

Figure 11: Construction of Sierpinskis triangle with omitted even numbers of Pascals (modulo 2) [14]

The coefficients of the Pascal Triangle can be given by

, where is the row division and is the element in that division. Both variables start counting from 0. Hence, the function of interest here is

{
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4.4 The coordinates of the triangle

The remaining task is to find the coordinates for where the function is discrete Fourier transform (DFT). and then achieve the

Consider an equilateral Pascal triangle with total divisions and elements for each division. is the horizontal elements and is the vertical division elements. Both and start at 0. The coordinate system we set up is as follows,

X coordinates: Since this is an equilateral triangle with side angles is the total height of the triangle, then we can scale it for any

If

divisions as

generates the horizontal location for the outer-most number co-ordinates. We can then observe that the distance between any two successive points (on the same division) is twice of that for the first division. A generic x coordinate system can then be said to be, (
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Y coordinates: Start counting downwards. Then ( is the value that we scale the unit triangle by. The co-ordinates of the Pascal triangle in the following co-ordinate system is given as, ( * +) )

Where we can choose to omit the even coefficient coordinates to model Sierpinskis triangle,

4.5 DFT of the Sierpinskis Triangle

We are now fit to use the definition of a DFT and apply it to the discrete Sierpinskis triangle, for the function { At the coordinates ( For every coefficient, given by * +)

Thus, the multidimensional discrete Fourier transform for every odd sampled coordinate is

There are a total of coordinates. x-coordinates and

total number of sampled points for the y-

We can plot the magnitude of the Fourier transform as

Note that this will be an imaginary plot. ie: | |

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(a)

(b)
Figure 16: (a) Right Sierpinskis triangle for (b) Ampltiude of his right Sierpinskis triangle Fourier transform

The amplitude of the Fourier transform is coloured in different intensities of grey in the plane. In Chapter 3, we hypothesized the total set (that is the total Sierpinskis Triangle) when Fourier transformed should peak in such a way that it is possible to see the decomposition of into its smaller subsets. We can see that this is true in Figure 16(b). In between the peak amplitudes, highligted in bright grey, we are able to define and see smaller subsets of the triangle , in a slightly dimmer grey. The part of least ampltiude (black) defines the non-periodicity of the fractal.

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In general, when we take a Fourier Trasform of a fractal set , we decompose in such a way that the smaller non-overlapping subsets that compose are readily accessible. Thus This is extremely useful in understanding the composition of if the smaller subsets are not known. It also is a the definition of self-similarity. The Fourier transform also does a nice job of highlighting the non-periodic parts of almost periodic systems! The applications of this method might be helpful when analyzing fractals that occur in nature, such as the universal mass distribution. We can graphically isolate the locations of galaxy or mass clusters using this technique while receiving more information about their momentum or frequency of formation (depending on what map you are looking at). Taking this one step further, it is ambitious to make a hypothesis about the evolution of the early universe using this information.

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Chapter 5 Generalized Fractals and the Efficiency of the Fourier Transform

Although it is possible to take discrete Fourier transforms of geometric objects, problems might arise in defining a coordinate system for more complicated systems. This is infact the most difficult part about this process; trying to discretize the fractal to find a set of sampling coordinates for the discrete Fourier transform.In most cases, once you have the coordinates, the function should typically be , You can also describe a fractal of choice by a matrix with entries of 0s and 1s, and then just transform it using a Fourier transform matrix. When it comes down to computational time and processing, performing a regular fourier transform require atleast multiplication. This can seem rather costly if you have a huge matrix, but there is much faster process of the fourier transform that requires less multiplication, called the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). This process require a minimum of , which is a revolutionary improvement. The fast fourier transform utilizes the realization that Fourier matrices are special matrices with orthogonal columns, meaning that it can be broken into chunks with lots of zero entries. Thus we can do a Fourier transform of size on a vector by separating the vector into its odd and even components, then performing a size Fourier transform on each half of its components, then recombining the two halves through a process which involves multiplication by the diagonal matrix The process of transforming the fractal is actally quite easy to perform, but the main challenge lies in finding its coordinate matrix/function.

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Figure 17: A Sierpinski carpet and the magnitude of its transform [15]

Figure 18: A chaotic attractor with dihedral 5-fold symmetry and the magnitude of its transform [15]

Figure 19: A chaotic attractor with forbidden symmetry and the magnitude of its transform [15] 22

Bibliography
[1] Mandelbrot B, The Fractal Geometry in Nature. W.H Freeman and Company, (1977) , Wereon, Evolution of the Sierpinski triangle in five iterations, (2006). Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Sierpinski_triangle_ evolution.svg/680px-Sierpinski_triangle_evolution.svg.png AnonMoos, Four iterations of a "box fractal" or "Vicsek fractal", (2009). Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Box_or_Vicsek_Fractal_4iterations.svg Oliver P.J, Fourier Series, University of Minnesota, (2013), Stein E. and Shakarchi R, An Introduction to Fourier Analysis, Princeton University Press, (2003) Thim J. Continuous Nowhere Differentiable Functions, Master Thesis, Lulea University of Technology, (2003), Maddock, Z, Properties of the Takagi Function, University of Michigan (2006), Blotwell, Approximations to the Blancmange function, (2006). Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Blancmangeapprox4.svg/320px-Blancmange-approx4.svg.png Press W. H., Teukolsky S. A., Vetterling W. T., Numerical Recipes: The Art of Scientific Computing, Cambridge University Press, (2007, 3rd Ed), Edgar G.A, Measure, Topology, and Fractal Geometry, Springer, (2007,2 Ed), 11 Allis N.W., Dumont J.P, Heiss F.J., Reiter C.A, FFT, Diffraction patterns in J, British APL Association (2004)

[2]

[3]

[4] [5], [8]

[6], [7], [9]

[10] [11]

[12], [13]

[14] [15]

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Appendix
Maple 14 Code:
Riemann Function:

Riemann Fourier Transform Function:

Riemann Approximation:

Weierstrass Function:

Weierstrass Fourier Transform Function:

Weierstrass Approximation:

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Fortran 90 Code:
triangle .f90
Program triangle Implicit None Integer :: N, M, i, j, k, q, z Real :: A, B Real :: PGOPEN Print *, "---------------- The Discrete Sierpinski's Triangle ----------------" Print *, "Please enter the number of horizontal segments N for the triangle" Read *, N !Determine number points for the N-level triangle DO i=1,N+1 z=z+i ENDDO ! Open a plot window IF (PGOPEN('/XWINDOW') .LE. 0) STOP ! Set-up plot axes CALL PGENV(0.,1.8,0.,1.,0,1) CALL PGLAB('x', 'y', 'Sierpinski Triangle') ! Change plot colour to colour 1 (white) CALL PGSCI(1) ! Compute the function at the points Do i=0, N Do j=0, i k = (factorial (i) / (factorial (j) * factorial (i - j))) If (mod(k,2) == 1) then A=(1/(N*1.7320508))*(i-2*j)+(1/1.7320508) B=1-(real(i)/real(N)) Call PGPT(z,A,B,1) End if Enddo !Print *,"-------" Enddo ! Pause and then close plot window Call PGEND Contains Function factorial (n) result (res) Implicit none Integer, intent (in) :: n Integer :: res Integer :: q res = product ((/(q, q = 1, n)/)) End function factorial End program triangle

! Are the coefficients even or odd? ! remove even coefficients ! x-coordinates ! y-coordinates

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Makefile
Triangle: triangle.o ifort -o Triangle triangle.o -lpgplot -lX11 triangle.o: triangle.f90 ifort -c triangle.f90

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