Global smoothness preservation and the variation-diminishing property (Q1125206)

Consider the following two properties. Property A) Let \(I\) and \(J\) be two intervals, and \(S_I[f]\) be the number of changes of sign of the function \(f\) in \(I\). Let \(U\) be a subspace of \(C(I)\) and \(L:U\to C(J)\) be a linear operator reproducing constant functions. The operator \(L\) is said to be strongly variation-diminishing if \(S_J[Lf]\geq S_I[f]\), for all \(f\in U\). Property B) Let \(\omega(f;\delta)\) \((\delta>0)\) be a modulus of smoothness of the function \(f:[0,1] \to\mathbb{R}\). An operator \(L:C[0,1]\to C[0,1]\) has the property of preserving the global smoothness if \(\omega(Lf; \delta)\leq c\omega (f;\delta)\) for some constant \(c>0\) and every \(f\in C[0,1]\). The purpose of this paper is to show that there are positive approximation operators which reproduce constant functions, having one of the two properties given above, but not the other. Considering mild additional assumptions it is shown that Property A implies Property B. The first counterexample is given by the operator \(L_n:C [0,1]\to C[0,1]\), defined by \(L_n(f;x)= B_n(f(t^2);\sqrt x)\), where \(B_n(f)= \sum^n_{k=0} f(k/n)p_{n,k}\) is the classical Bernstein operator. It is proved that \(L_n\) has the variation-diminishing property but does not preserve global smoothness. Two problems which arise from the above example are posed and partially solved. A second counterexample is found considering Bernstein-type operators on \(C[0,1]\), defined by \(B_n^*(f)= \sum^n_{k=0} f(x_{k,n})p_{n,k}\), where \(x_{k,n} \in[0,1]\). The conclusion on \(B^*_n\) follows from one of the results proved in the paper: Theorem: The operator \(B^*_n\) has the Property A if and only if one of the following two conditions holds: 1) \(x_{k,n}\leq x_{k+1, n}\), \(k=0,\dots, n-1\), 2) \(x_{k,n}\geq x_{k+1,n}\), \(k=0,\dots,n-1\). Defining \(x_{1,n}= 2/n\), \(x_{2,n}=1/n\), and \(x_{k,n} =k/n\) otherwise, the authors construct an operator \(L_n=B_n^*\) which satisfies Property B. However, from the above theorem, this operator \(L_n\) does not have the first property. Some characteristics of the second example lead to a third problem whose answer is investigated in the last section.