Maximally Equiangular Frames and Gauss Sums

In a finite-dimensional complex Euclidean space, a maximally equiangular frame is a tight frame which has a number of elements equal to the square of the dimension of the space, and in which the inner products of distinct elements are of constant magnitude. Though the general question of their existence remains open, many examples of maximally equiangular frames have been constructed as finite Gabor systems. These constructions involve number theory, specifically Schaar’s identity, which provides a reciprocity formula for quadratic Gauss sums. To be precise, Zauner used Schaar’s identity to compute the spectrum of a chirp-Fourier operator, the eigenvectors of which he conjectured to be well-suited for the construction of maximally equiangular Gabor frames. We provide two new characterizations of such frames, both of which further confirm the relevance of the theory of Gauss sums to this area of frame theory. We also show how the unique time-frequency properties of a particular cyclic chirp function may be exploited to provide a new, short and elementary proof of Schaar’s identity.