We study families of time-frequency localization operators and derive a new
characterization of modulation spaces. This characterization relates the size
of the localization operators to the global time-frequency distribution. As a
by-product, we obtain a new proof for the existence of multi-window Gabor
frames and extend the structure theory of Gabor frames.
We investigate a new representation of general operators by means of sums of
shifted Gabor multipliers. These representations arise by studying the matrix
of an operator with respect to a Gabor frame. Each shifted Gabor multiplier
corresponds to a side-diagonal of this matrix. This representation is
especially useful for operators whose associated matrix possesses some
off-diagonal decay. In this case one can completely characterize the symbol
class of the operator by the size of the symbols of the Gabor multipliers.