Quaternion Zernike Spherical Polynomials

Abstract

Over the past few years considerable attention has been given to the role played by the Zernike polynomials (ZPs) in many different fields of geometrical optics, optical engineering, and astronomy. The ZPs and their applications to corneal surface modeling played a key role in this development. These polynomials are a complete set of orthogonal functions over the unit circle and are commonly used to describe balanced aberrations. In the present paper we introduce the Zernike spherical polynomials within quaternionic analysis ((R)QZSPs), which refine and extend the Zernike moments (defined through their polynomial counterparts). In particular, the underlying functions are of three real variables and take on either values in the reduced and full quaternions (identified, respectively, with $ \mathbb{R}^3$ and $ \mathbb{R}^4$). (R)QZSPs are orthonormal in the unit ball. The representation of these functions in terms of spherical monogenics over the unit sphere are explicitly given, from which several recurrence formulae for fast computer implementations can be derived. A summary of their fundamental properties and a further second order homogeneous differential equation are also discussed. As an application, we provide the reader with plot simulations that demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.

(R)QZSPs are new in literature and have some consequences that are now under investigation.