Every frame is a sum of three (but not two) orthonormal bases—and other frame representations

We show that every frame for a Hilbert space H can be written as a (multiple of a) sum of three orthonormal bases for H. We next show that this result is best possible by including a result of Kalton: A frame can be represented as a linear combination of two orthonormal bases if and only if it is a Riesz basis. We further show that every frame can be written as a (multiple of a) sum of two tight frames with frame bounds one or a sum of an orthonormal basis and a Riesz basis for H. Finally, every frame can be written as a (multiple of a) average of two orthonormal bases for a larger Hilbert space. Acknowledgements and Notes. This research was supported by NSF DMS 9701234. Part of this research was conducted while the author was a visitor at the “Workshop on Linear Analysis and Probability”, Texas A&M University.