Completion versus removal of redundancy by perturbation

A sequence $\{g_k\}_{k=1}^\infty$ in a Hilbert space $\cal H$ has the expansion property if each $f\in \overline{\text{span}} \{g_k\}_{k=1}^\infty$ has a representation $f= \sum_{k=1}^\infty c_k g_k$ for some scalar coefficients $c_k.$ In this paper we analyze the question whether there exist small norm-perturbations of $\{g_k\}_{k=1}^\infty$ which allow to represent all $f\in \cal H;$ the answer turns out to be yes for frame sequences and Riesz sequences, but no for general basic sequences. The insight gained from the analysis is used to address a somewhat dual question, namely, whether it is possible to remove redundancy from a sequence with the expansion property via small norm-perturbations; we prove that the answer is yes for frames $\{g_k\}_{k=1}^\infty$ such that $g_k\to 0$ as $k\to \infty,$ as well as for frames with finite excess. This particular question is motivated by recent progress in dynamical sampling.