Spectral analysis of the Chandler wobble: comparison of the discrete Fourier analysis and the maximum entropy method

Abstract:

The methods of spectral analysis are applied to solve the following two problems concerning the free Chandler wobble (CW): 1) to estimate the CW resonance parameters, the period T and the quality factor Q, and 2) to perform the excitation balance of the observed free wobble. It appears, however, that the results depend on the algorithm of spectral analysis applied. Here we compare the following two algorithms which are frequently applied for analysis of the polar motion data, the classical discrete Fourier analysis and the maximum entropy method corresponding to the autoregressive modeling of the input time series. We start from general description of both methods and of their application to the analysis of the Earth orientation observations. Then we compare results of the analysis of the polar motion and the related excitation data.