Polytopes of eigensteps of finite equal norm tight frames

Abstract

Hilbert space frames generalize orthonormal bases to allow redundancy in representations of vectors while keeping good reconstruction properties. A frame comes with an associated frame operator encoding essential properties of the frame. We study a polytope that arises in an algorithm for constructing all finite frames with given lengths of frame vectors and spectrum of the frame operator, which is a Gelfand-Tsetlin polytope. For equal norm tight frames, we give a non-redundant description of the polytope in terms of equations and inequalities. From this we obtain the dimension and number of facets of the polytope.