On the instantaneous frequency of Gaussian stochastic processes

Abstract

This paper concerns the instantaneous frequency (IF) of continuous-time, zero-mean, complex-valued, proper, mean-square differentiable nonstationary Gaussian stochastic processes. We compute the probability density function for the IF for fixed time, which extends a result known for wide-sense stationary processes to nonstationary processes. For a fixed time the IF has either zero or infinite variance. For harmonizable processes we obtain as a byproduct that the mean of the IF, for fixed time, is the normalized first order frequency moment of the Wigner spectrum.

22 pages