A sharp bound on the Lebesgue constant for Leja points in the unit disk (Q346221)

Let \(\mathcal{U}=\{z\in\mathbb{C} : |z|\leq 1\}\) be the unit disk in the complex plane and \(\partial\mathcal{U}=\{z\in\mathbb{C} : |z| = 1\}\) its boundary (i.e., the unit circle). If \((e_k)_{k\geq 0}\) is a Leja sequence initiated at some \(e_0\in\partial\mathcal U\) (see \textit{F. Leja} [Ann. Pol. Math. 4, 8--13 (1957; Zbl 0089.08303)]), selected recursively \(e_k\) such that \(\prod_{j=0}^{k-1}|e_k-e_j|=\max\prod_{j=0}^{k-1}|z-e_j|,\, ,\, k=1,2,\dots.\) For \(f\in C(\mathcal U)\) (the Banach space of complex-valued functions defined on \(\mathcal U\) with the uniform norm) and a Leja \(k\)-section \(E_k=(e_0,e_1,\dots,e_{k-1})\), the author considers the Lagrange polynomial \(L_{E_k}(f)(z)=\sum_{j=0}^{k-1}f(e_j)\ell_{j,E_k}(z),\) where \(\ell_{j,E_k}(z)=\prod_{i=0,i\neq j}^{k-1}(z-e_i)/(e_j-e_i).\) The norm \[ \Lambda_{E_k}:=\sup\{\|L_{E_k}(f)\| : \|f\|\leq 1\} \] of the operator \(L_{E_k}:C(\mathcal U)\to\Pi_{k-1}\) is the so called Lebesgue constant. The author proves that for any \(k\geq 1\) and for any Leja \(k\)-section \(E_k\) in the unit disk the Lebesgue constant satisfies the following sharp bound: \[ \Lambda_{E_k}\leq k. \] This inequality answers positively a conjecture of \textit{J.-P. Calvi} and \textit{V. M. Phung} [J. Approx. Theory 163, No. 5, 608--622 (2011; Zbl 1222.41003)].