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

On some Extremal Problems of Landau

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary: 42A05. Secondary: 42A82, 11N05.The prime number theorem with error term presents itself as &pi'(x) = ∫2x [dt/ logt] + O ( x e- K logL x). In 1909, Edmund Landau provided a systematic analysis of the proof seeking better values of L and K. At a key point of his 1899 proof de la Vallée Poussin made use of the nonnegative trigonometric polynomial 2/3 (1+cos x)2 = 1+4/3 cosx +1/3 cos2x. Landau considered more general positive definite nonnegative cosine polynomials 1+a1cos x+… + ancos nx ≥ 0, with a1> 1,ak ≥ 0 (k = 1,…,n), and deduced the above error term with L = 1/2 and any K< 1/(2V(a))½, where V(a): = (a1+a2+…+ an)/(( (a1)½-1)2). Thus the extremal problem of finding V: = minV(a) over all admissible coefficients, i.e. polynomials, arises. The question was further studied by Landau and later on by many other eminent mathematicians. The present work surveys these works as well as current questions and ramifications of the theme, starting with a long unnoticed, but rather valuable Bulgarian publication of Lubomir Chakalov.Supported in part in the framework of the Hungarian-French Scientific and Technological Governmental Cooperation, Project # F-10/04. The author was supported in part by the Hungarian National Foundation for Scientific Research, Project #s T-049301, T-049693 and K-61908. This work was accomplished during the author’s stay in Paris under his Marie Curie fellowship, contract # MEIF-CT-2005-022927

Distribution of Beurling primes and zeroes of the Beurling zeta function I. Distribution of the zeroes of the zeta function of Beurling

We prove three results on the density resp. local density and clustering of zeros of the Beurling zeta function $\zeta(s)$ close to the one-line $\sigma:=\Re s=1$. The analysis here brings about some news, sometimes even for the classical case of the Riemann zeta function. Theorem 4 provides a zero density estimate, which is a complement to known results for the Selberg class. Note that density results for the Selberg class rely on use of the functional equation of $\zeta$, which we do not assume in the Beurling context. In Theorem 5 we deduce a variant of a well-known theorem of Tur\'an, extending its range of validity even for rectangles of height only $h=2$. In Theorem 6 we will extend a zero clustering result of Ramachandra from the Riemann zeta case. A weaker result -- which, on the other hand, is a strong sharpening of the average result from the classic book \cite{Mont} of Montgomery -- was worked out by Diamond, Montgomery and Vorhauer. Here we show that the obscure technicalities of the Ramachandra paper (like a polynomial with coefficients like $10^8$) can be gotten rid of, providing a more transparent proof of the validity of this clustering phenomenon