As an arbitrary mapping from pairs of reals (or complex numbers) to reals, a doubly periodic function can be constructed with little effort. For example, assume that the periods are 1 and i, so that the repeating lattice is the set of unit squares with vertices at the Gaussian integers. Values in the prototype square (i.e. x + iy where 0 ≤ x < 1 and 0 ≤ y < 1) can be assigned rather arbitrarily and then 'copied' to adjacent squares. This function will then be necessarily doubly periodic.
If the vectors 1 and i in this example are replaced by linearly independent vectors u and v, the prototype square becomes a prototype parallelogram that still tiles the plane. The "origin" of the lattice of parallelograms does not have to be the point 0: the lattice can start from any point. In other words, we can think of the plane and its associated functional values as remaining fixed, and mentally translate the lattice to gain insight into the function's characteristics.
Main article: Elliptic function
If a doubly periodic function is also a complex function that satisfies the Cauchy–Riemann equations and provides an analytic function away from some set of isolated poles – in other words, a meromorphic function – then a lot of information about such a function can be obtained by applying some basic theorems from complex analysis.
"Double-periodic function", Encyclopedia of Mathematics, EMS Press, 2001 [1994], adapted from an original article by E.D. Solomentsev. https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php?title=Double-periodic_function ↩
Weisstein, Eric W. "Doubly Periodic Function". mathworld.wolfram.com. Wolfram Mathworld. Retrieved 3 October 2022. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/DoublyPeriodicFunction.html ↩