On Higher Order Approximations for Hermite–Gaussian Functions and Discrete Fractional Fourier Transforms

Discrete equivalents of Hermite-Gaussian functions play a critical role in the definition of a discrete fractional Fourier transform. The discrete equivalents are typically calculated through the eigendecomposition of a commutator matrix. In this letter, we first characterize the space of DFT-commuting matrices and then construct matrices approximating the Hermite-Gaussian generating differential equation and use the matrices to accurately generate the discrete equivalents of Hermite-Gaussians.