Exact indices of $\tt fft$

Question

Let's consider the cyclic frequency transform and let's try to make it so that the transform of the function is itself.

t=linspace(-32,32,4096);
dt=t(2)-t(1);
fq=linspace( -1/(2*dt) , 1/(2*dt) , length(t) + 1 );
fq=fq(1:  length(t)  );
x=exp(-pi*t.*t);
X=fftshift(fft(x)).*exp(-1i*2*pi*fq*t(1))*dt;
plot(t,real(X));hold on;plot(t,imag(X));hold off;

Now this actually works, and believe me it was not easy for me to get these right. I basically resorted to trial and error, tried adding $\pm 1$ everywhere until I got something that looked reasonable at all. I would like to learn the method behind this madness.

1. Is is a good idea to use something like t=linspace(-32,32,4096);
   Considering how the frequency is asymmetrical, perhaps time should be as well?

2. What frequencies does the result of X=fftshift(fft(x)) actually correspond to?

3. Any other suggestions, etc.?

Answer 1

The FFT calculates the spectrum at N points in the range from $[0, 2\pi)$ where due to the cyclic property the relative frequency 0 must be equal to the frequency $2\pi$. This is best shown via an example. Note that $2\pi$ corresponds to your sampling frequency.

Example: For a length 3 impulse response, say $h=[0.5, 1, 0.5]$, the FFT calculates the spectrum at the relative frequencies $[0, \frac{1}{3}2\pi, \frac{2}{3}2\pi]$, instead of the frequencies $[0, \frac{1}{2}2\pi, 2\pi]$. One way to calculate these frequencies in Matlab for an $N$ points FFT is as follows:

N = 3;
h = [0.5 1 0.5];
fq = linspace(0, 2*pi, N+1);
fq = fq(1:end-1);
H = fft(h);
figure; 
plot(fq, abs(H)); 

The function fftshift takes the right part of the spectrum and places it on the left such that you obtain the frequencies $[\frac{2}{3}2\pi, 0, \frac{1}{3}2\pi]$.

When you are not using the fftshift function and just plot the range $[0, 2\pi]$, then you can use positive time indices for t.