Comonotone approximation and interpolation by entire functions II

TL;DR

This paper extends previous work on approximating smooth functions with entire functions, focusing on conditions for preserving monotonicity and derivatives' monotonicity for functions with limited smoothness.

Contribution

It identifies conditions under which piecewise monotone functions can be approximated by entire functions that are comonotone, especially for derivatives up to order three, building towards a general theorem.

Findings

For n ≤ 3, conditions for comonotone approximation are established.

The work supports a conjecture related to endpoint derivative values for all n.

The results extend to all n assuming the conjecture holds.

Abstract

A theorem of Hoischen states that given a positive continuous function $\varepsilon:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$, an integer $n\geq 0$, and a closed discrete set $E\subseteq\mathbb{R}$, any $C^n$ function $f:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$ can be approximated by an entire function $g$ so that for $k=0,\dots,n$, and $x\in\mathbb{R}$, $|D^{k}g(x)-D^{k}f(x)|<\varepsilon(x)$, and if $x\in E$ then $D^{k}g(x)=D^{k}f(x)$. The approximating function $g$ is entire and hence piecewise monotone. Building on earlier work, for $n\leq 3$, we determine conditions under which when $f$ is piecewise monotone we can choose $g$ to be comonotone with $f$ (increasing and decreasing on the same intervals), and under which the derivatives of $g$ can be taken to be comonotone with the corresponding derivatives of $f$ if the latter are piecewise monotone. The proof for $n\leq 3$ establishes the theorem for all $n$, assuming a conjecture (shown in previous work with Haris and Madhavendra to hold for $n\leq 3$) regarding the set of $2(n+1)$-tuples $(f(0),Df(0),\dots,D^nf(0),f(1),Df(1),\dots,D^nf(1))$ of the values at the endpoints of the derivatives of a $C^n$ function $f$ on $[0,1]$ for which $D^nf$ is increasing and not constant.