Analytical Singular-Value Structure of Analytic-Continuation Kernels from Slepian Information Theory

Abstract

Analytic continuation from imaginary-time Green's functions to real-frequency spectra is a central ill-posed inverse problem in quantum many-body physics. We show that the thermal kernel admits an analytical generalized singular-value structure once its purely dynamical part is separated from the statistical weight imposed by the heat bath. The dynamical kernel is the imaginary-bandwidth continuation of Slepian's finite Fourier transform and is governed by the same Sturm-Liouville algebra that yields prolate spheroidal wave functions. Fermionic and bosonic statistics then enter as gauge transformations of the frequency-space inner product, producing self-adjoint effective potentials but no numerical kernel diagonalization. The Shannon number, $N_c=β\wmax/π$, fixes the upper information capacity of this pure Laplace channel. Finally, the optimal sampling points are obtained as eigenvalues of a Legendre colleague matrix, giving a deterministic compressed-sensing grid without iterative root searches.