Strategies to find the best basis function on a Hilbert space

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Consider the Hilbert space associated with the $L^p$-norm. I'm interested to find the best (in the sense of the most sparse) truncated approximation for isomorphic functions in this space. Naturally, I have to pay attention to the best basis set I can choose.

I know that for a complete orthonormal basis, one can find a truncated basis set $B_T$ which approximates the space elements $v$ up to the tolerance level $T = ||Proj(v,B_T^{\perp})||_p$ (I'm misusing the notation here...)

I have two related questions:

  1. Do orthogonal basis always give the most sparse representation, for a fixed function and space?
  2. what are the best strategies to find the best basis set given some information about the functions?

For instance, for functions with the following property:

  • Having most of their (p-norm) energy in the lower (or higher) frequencies
  • oscillatory decaying functions
  • pieces-wise constant with limited domain $D = [d_1,d_2]$
  • unknown properties (Can I for instance use Hermite functions as a basis if $p=2$, for instance?)

Please don't hesitate to link or introduce resources that cover this topic. Thank you.