Dimension Walks on Generalized Spaces

Abstract

Let $d,k$ be positive integers. We call generalized spaces the cartesian product of the $d$-dimensional sphere, $\mathbb{S}^d$, with the $k$-dimensional Euclidean space, $\mathbb{R}^k$. We consider the class ${\mathcal P}(\mathbb{S}^d \times \mathbb{R}^k)$ of continuous functions $\varphi: [-1,1] \times [0,\infty) \to \mathbb{R}$ such that the mapping $C: \left ( \mathbb{S}^d \times\mathbb{R}^k \right )^2 \to \mathbb{R}$, defined as $C \Big ( (x,y),(x^{\prime},y^{\prime})\Big ) = \varphi \Big ( \cos \theta(x,x^{\prime}), \|y-y^{\prime}\| \Big )$, $(x,y), \; (x^{\prime},y^{\prime}) \in \mathbb{S}^d \times \mathbb{R}^k$, is positive definite. We propose linear operators that allow for walks through dimension within generalized spaces while preserving positive definiteness.