There are two sorts of transforms known as the fractional Fourier transform.

The linear fractional Fourier transform is a discrete Fourier transform in which the exponent is modified by the addition of a factor ,

However, such transforms may not be consistent with their inverses unless is an integer relatively prime to so that . Fractional fourier transforms are implemented in the Wolfram Language as Fourier[list, FourierParameters -> a, b], where is an additional scaling parameter. For example, the plots above show 2-dimensional fractional Fourier transforms of the function for parameter ranging from 1 to 6.

The quadratic fractional Fourier transform is defined in signal processing and optics. Here, the fractional powers of the ordinary Fourier transform operation correspond to rotation by angles in the time-frequency or space-frequency plane (phase space). So-called fractional Fourier domains correspond to oblique axes in the time-frequency plane, and thus the fractional Fourier transform (sometimes abbreviated FRT) is directly related to the Radon transforms of the Wigner distribution and the ambiguity function. Of particular interest from a signal processing perspective is the concept of filtering in fractional Fourier domains. Physically, the transform is intimately related to Fresnel diffraction in wave and beam propagation and to the quantum-mechanical harmonic oscillator.