General Existence Theorems for Orthonormal Wavelets, an Abstract Approach

Methods from noncommutative harmonic analysis are used to develop an abstract theory of orthonormal wavelets. The relationship between the existence of an orthonormal wavelet and the existence of a multi-resolution is clarified, and four theorems guaranteeing the existence of wavelets are proved. As a special case of the fourth theorem, a generalization of known results on the existence of smooth wavelets having compact support is obtained.