A decomposition theorem for frames and the Feichtinger Conjecture

Abstract

In this paper we study the Feichtinger Conjecture in frame theory, which was recently shown to be equivalent to the 1959 Kadison-Singer Problem in C ∗ C^{*} -Algebras. We will show that every bounded Bessel sequence can be decomposed into two subsets each of which is an arbitrarily small perturbation of a sequence with a finite orthogonal decomposition. This construction is then used to answer two open problems concerning the Feichtinger Conjecture: 1. The Feichtinger Conjecture is equivalent to the conjecture that every unit norm Bessel sequence is a finite union of frame sequences. 2. Every unit norm Bessel sequence is a finite union of sets each of which is ω \omega -independent for ℓ 2 \ell _2 -sequences.