Optimality conjecture for harmonic frames in real two-dimensional phase retrieval

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Let m≥4m\geq 4 be an even integer. For A∈Rm×2\boldsymbol{A}\in\mathbb{R}^{m\times 2}, let βAR\beta_{\boldsymbol{A}}^{\mathbb{R}} denote its condition number, and let Em∈Rm×2\boldsymbol{E}_m\in\mathbb{R}^{m\times 2} be the harmonic frame

Em:=(1cos⁡1mπ⋯cos⁡m−1mπ0sin⁡1mπ⋯sin⁡m−1mπ)T.\boldsymbol{E}_m:=\left(\begin{array}{cccc} 1 & \cos \frac{1}{m}\pi & \cdots & \cos \frac{m-1}{m}\pi \\ 0 & \sin \frac{1}{m}\pi & \cdots & \sin \frac{m-1}{m}\pi \end{array}\right)^{T}.

Harmonic-frame optimality conjecture. If m≥4m\geq 4 is even, then

βEmR=min⁡A∈Rm×2βAR.\beta_{\boldsymbol{E}_m}^{\mathbb{R}}=\min_{\boldsymbol{A}\in\mathbb{R}^{m\times 2}}\beta_{\boldsymbol{A}}^{\mathbb{R}}.

The corresponding equality is known for odd integers m≥3m\geq 3, while the conjecture asserts optimality of the harmonic frame in the remaining even case.

References

Primary source

Zhiqiang Xu, Zili Xu and Xinyue Zhang, “Optimal Frames for Phase Retrieval from Edge Vectors of Optimal Polygons”, arXiv:2510.04099 (2026).

Additional references

4 papers in this index state this conjecture (2011–2025). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:1407.3631, arXiv:1312.4550, arXiv:1104.3988.

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