An elliptic filter (also known as a Cauer filter, named after Wilhelm Cauer, or as a Zolotarev filter, after Yegor Zolotarev) is a signal processing filter with equalized ripple (equiripple) behavior in both the passband and the stopband. The amount of ripple in each band is independently adjustable, and no other filter of equal order can have a faster transition in gain between the passband and the stopband, for the given values of ripple (whether the ripple is equalized or not). Alternatively, one may give up the ability to adjust independently the passband and stopband ripple, and instead design a filter which is maximally insensitive to component variations.
As the ripple in the stopband approaches zero, the filter becomes a type I Chebyshev filter. As the ripple in the passband approaches zero, the filter becomes a type II Chebyshev filter and finally, as both ripple values approach zero, the filter becomes a Butterworth filter.
The gain of a lowpass elliptic filter as a function of angular frequency ω is given by:
where Rn is the nth-order elliptic rational function (sometimes known as a Chebyshev rational function) and
The value of the ripple factor specifies the passband ripple, while the combination of the ripple factor and the selectivity factor specify the stopband ripple.
The zeroes of the gain of an elliptic filter will coincide with the poles of the elliptic rational function, which are derived in the article on elliptic rational functions.
The poles of the gain of an elliptic filter may be derived in a manner very similar to the derivation of the poles of the gain of a type I Chebyshev filter. For simplicity, assume that the cutoff frequency is equal to unity. The poles of the gain of the elliptic filter will be the zeroes of the denominator of the gain. Using the complex frequency this means that: