Overview of complex data FFTs

The inputs and outputs for the complex FFT routines are packed arrays of floating point numbers. In a packed array the real and imaginary parts of each complex number are placed in alternate neighboring elements. For example, the following definition of a packed array of length 6,

gsl_complex_packed_array data[6];

can be used to hold an array of three complex numbers, z[3], in the following way,

data[0] = Re(z[0])
data[1] = Im(z[0])
data[2] = Re(z[1])
data[3] = Im(z[1])
data[4] = Re(z[2])
data[5] = Im(z[2])

A stride parameter allows the user to perform transforms on the elements z[stride*i] instead of z[i]. A stride greater than 1 can be used to take an in-place FFT of the column of a matrix. A stride of 1 accesses the array without any additional spacing between elements.

The array indices have the same ordering as those in the definition of the DFT -- i.e. there are no index transformations or permutations of the data.

For physical applications it is important to remember that the index appearing in the DFT does not correspond directly to a physical frequency. If the time-step of the DFT is @math{\Delta} then the frequency-domain includes both positive and negative frequencies, ranging from @math{-1/(2\Delta)} through 0 to @math{+1/(2\Delta)}. The positive frequencies are stored from the beginning of the array up to the middle, and the negative frequencies are stored backwards from the end of the array.

Here is a table which shows the layout of the array data, and the correspondence between the time-domain data @math{z}, and the frequency-domain data @math{x}.

index    z               x = FFT(z)

0        z(t = 0)        x(f = 0)
1        z(t = 1)        x(f = 1/(N Delta))
2        z(t = 2)        x(f = 2/(N Delta))
.        ........        ..................
N/2      z(t = N/2)      x(f = +1/(2 Delta),
                               -1/(2 Delta))
.        ........        ..................
N-3      z(t = N-3)      x(f = -3/(N Delta))
N-2      z(t = N-2)      x(f = -2/(N Delta))
N-1      z(t = N-1)      x(f = -1/(N Delta))

When @math{N} is even the location @math{N/2} contains the most positive and negative frequencies @math{+1/(2 \Delta)}, @math{-1/(2 \Delta)}) which are equivalent. If @math{N} is odd then general structure of the table above still applies, but @math{N/2} does not appear.