Trigonometric polynomials of least deviation from zero in measure and related problems (Q606684)

Let \(\mathcal{F}_{n}\) be the set of trigonometric polynomials \[ f_{n}(t)=\frac{a_{0}}{2}+\sum_{k=1}^{n}(a_{k}\cos kt +b_{k}\sin k t) \] of order \(n\geq 0\) with real coefficients. On the set \(\mathcal{F}_{n}\) consider the functional \[ \mu(f_{n})=\text{mes}\{t\in \mathbb{T}\,:\,|f_{n}(t)|\geq 1\}, \] where \(\text{mes}\) stands for the Lebesgue measure on the unit circle \(\mathbb{T}\). Let \(\mathcal{F}_{n}(y)\) be the set of trigonometric polynomials of order \(n\) of the form \[ f_{n}(t)=y\,\cos nt+f_{n-1}(t), \quad f_{n-1}\in \mathcal{F}_{n-1} \] and \[ \sigma_{n}(y)=\inf\{\mu(f_{n})\,:\, f_{n}\in \mathcal{F}_{n}(y)\}. \] The authors give a proof of the following result: For \(y>1\) and \(n\geq 1\), the equality \[ \sigma_{n}(y)=4\,\arccos \frac{1}{y^{\frac{1}{2n}}}, \] is valid. Moreover, for \(k=0,1,\ldots,2n-1\), the polynomial \[ f_{n}(t)=f_{n,k}(t)=(-1)^{k}\,T_{n}\Big(y^{\frac{1}{n}}\cos\Big(t-\frac{k\pi}{n}\Big)-y^{\frac{1}{n}}+1\Big) \] belongs to the set \(\mathcal{F}_{n}(y)\) and it is an extremal polynomial in the problem of determining \(\sigma_{n}(y)\), that is, the polynomial that deviates at least from zero. Here, \(T_{n}(x)=\cos(n\,\arccos x),\;x\in[-1,\,1]\) is the Chebyshev polynomial of the first kind and degree \(n\). The authors discuss several other closely related results. In particular, for algebraic polynomials with zeros on the unit circle of the complex plain and with the unit leading coefficient, the authors consider the least uniform deviation from zero on a compact set and find the minimal value of the deviation over compact subsets of the circle that have a given measure. For trigonometric polynomials with a fixed leading harmonic, the authors consider the least uniform deviation from zero on a compact set and find the minimal value of the deviation over compact subsets of the torus \(\mathbb{T}\) that have a given measure.