In Fourier analysis in particular, it is interesting to study the singular support of a distribution. This has the intuitive interpretation as the set of points at which a distribution fails to be a smooth function.
For example, the Fourier transform of the Heaviside step function can, up to constant factors, be considered to be 1/x (a function) except at x = 0. While this is clearly a special point, it is more precise to say that the transform qua distribution has singular support {0}: it cannot accurately be expressed as a function in relation to test functions with support including 0. It can be expressed as an application of a Cauchy principal value improper integral.
For distributions in several variables, singular supports allow one to define wave front sets and understand Huygens' principle in terms of mathematical analysis. Singular supports may also be used to understand phenomena special to distribution theory, such as attempts to 'multiply' distributions (squaring the Dirac delta function fails - essentially because the singular supports of the distributions to be multiplied should be disjoint).
Read more about this topic: Support (mathematics)
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