My apologies to the chemists; I am a mathematician, so please excuse my ignorance regarding the underlying chemistry. My area is signal processing and I have become very interested in applying some relatively new techniques in Fourier analysis, namely Fractional Fourier Transforms and Linear Cannonical transforms to the analysis of the signals from GC. In particular, I am wondering if an improvement in the resolution of the signals from these instruments can help with oil fingerprinting. For example, if a sample from an oil spill, say from the bilge water from a passing ship, is not analyzed quickly, then the fingerprinting of the oil becomes difficult.

Does anyone know of any work that has been done in this, or any related area?

Thank-you
Wade