The periodic decomposition problem

If a function $f:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$ can be represented as the sum of $n$ periodic functions as $f=f_1+\dots+f_n$ with $f(x+\alpha_j)=f(x)$ ($j=1,\dots,n$), then it also satisfies a corresponding $n$-order difference equation $\Delta_{\alpha_1}\dots\Delta_{\alpha_n} f=0$. The periodic decomposition problem asks for the converse implication, which may hold or fail depending on the context (on the system of periods, on the function class in which the problem is considered, etc.). The problem has natural extensions and ramifications in various directions, and is related to several other problems in real analysis, Fourier and functional analysis. We give a survey about the available methods and results, and present a number of intriguing open problems

Integral Concentration of idempotent trigonometric polynomials with gaps

We prove that for all p>1/2 there exists a constant $\gamma_p>0$ such that, for any symmetric measurable set of positive measure E\subset \TT and for any $\gamma<\gamma_p$, there is an idempotent trigonometrical polynomial f satisfying \int_E |f|^p > \gamma \int_{\TT} |f|^p. This disproves a conjecture of Anderson, Ash, Jones, Rider and Saffari, who proved the existence of $\gamma_p>0$ for p>1 and conjectured that it does not exists for p=1. Furthermore, we prove that one can take $\gamma_p=1$ when p>1 is not an even integer, and that polynomials f can be chosen with arbitrarily large gaps when $p\neq 2$. This shows striking differences with the case p=2, for which the best constant is strictly smaller than 1/2, as it has been known for twenty years, and for which having arbitrarily large gaps with such concentration of the integral is not possible, according to a classical theorem of Wiener. We find sharper results for $0<p\leq 1$ when we restrict to open sets, or when we enlarge the class of idempotent trigonometric polynomials to all positive definite ones.Comment: 43 pages; to appear in Amer. J. Mat

Large time asymptotics for the density of a branching Wiener process

Given an R^d-valued supercritical branching Wiener process, let D(A,T) be the number of particles in a subset A of R^d at time T, (T=0,1,2,...). We provide a complete asymptotic expansion of D(A,T) as T goes to infinity, generalizing the work of X.Chen