Feed-Forward Neural Networks Based on the Eigenstates of the Quantum Harmonic Oscillator

Abstract

The paper introduces feed-forward neural networks where the hidden units employ orthogonal Hermite polynomials for their activation functions. The proposed neural networks have some interesting properties: (i) the basis functions are invariant under the Fourier transform, subject only to a change of scale, (ii) the basis functions are the eigenstates of the quantum harmonic oscillator, and stem from the solution of Schrödinger's diffusion equation. The proposed feed-forward neural networks belong to the general category of nonparametric estimators and can be used for function approximation, system modelling and image processing.