FGFRFT: Fast Graph Fractional Fourier Transform via Exact Spectral Splitting and Fourier-Series Approximation

Abstract

The graph fractional Fourier transform (GFRFT) for unitary graph Fourier transform (GFT) matrices can be interpreted through the scalar function $e^{jαθ}$ on the unit circle. Under the principal branch, its Fourier-series representation encounters an intrinsic obstruction at the spectral point $λ=-1$ for non-integer orders. To address this issue, we propose a fast graph fractional Fourier transform (FGFRFT) based on exact spectral splitting: the $λ=-1$ component is treated exactly, and the complementary component is approximated by a truncated Fourier series in integer powers of the GFT matrix. This construction yields an offline--online implementation that reduces the online complexity of repeated operator updates from $O(N^3)$ to $O(2LN^2)$ for truncation order $L$, while preserving differentiability with respect to the transform order. We further derive truncation-error bounds, approximate unitarity and additivity, and reconstruction-error bounds. Experiments on approximation accuracy, transform-order learning, image denoising, and point-cloud denoising show that FGFRFT provides substantial online acceleration while remaining close to the exact GFRFT under the tested settings.