On \(A\)-spaces and their relation to the Hobby-Rice theorem (Q1185936)

Denote by \(C^+\) the set of all positive continuous functions on the interval \([a,b]\subseteq \mathbb R\). For \(w\in C^+\), let \(C_w[a,b]\) be the space \(C[a,b]\) equipped with the norm \(\| f\|=\int^b_a| f| w\,d\mu\), where \(\mu\) is the Lebesgue measure on \(\mathbb R\). If \(U\) is an \(n\)-dimensional subspace of \(C_w[a,b]\) then, by a result of \textit{C. R. Hobby} and \textit{J. R. Rice} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 16, 665--670 (1965; Zbl 0142.09802)] there exist points \(a= x_0<x_1< \cdots< x_{m+1}=b\), \(m\leq n\), such that \[ \sum^{m+1}_{j=1}(-1)^ j \int^{x_ j}_{x_{j- 1}} u.w. \,d\mu=0, \] for all \(u\in U\). The set \(\{x_j\}^m_{j=1}\) is called a \(w\)-canonical set for \(U\) and the dimension of \(U\) is called the rank of \(\{x_j\}\). The paper is concerned with characterizations of subspaces \(U\) for which \(m=n\), the \(w\)-canonical set is unique or the rank of \(\{x_j\}\) is \(n\). The main result of this paper asserts that the \(w\)-canonical set \(\{x_j\}\) is unique and contains \(n\) points for all \(w\in C^+\), if and only if \(U\) is a weak Chebyshev subspace (i.e. each element of \(U\) has at most \(n-1\) sign changes in \((a,b))\) and has the splitting property (if \(u\in U\) is \(0\) on \([c,d]\), \((a,b)\) then \(u\cdot\chi_{[a,c]}\) and \(u\cdot\chi_{[c,d]}\) are in \(U)\).