Müntz-type problems for Bernstein polynomials (Q1335037)

Obviously for \(n\to\infty\) the linear span of the \(n+1\) Bernstein basis functions \(x^ k(1- x)^{n-k}\), \(k\in \{0,\dots, n\}\) approximates \(C[0,1]\) with respect to the sup-norm on \([0,1]\). The authors examine how many of these \(n+1\) basis functions can be omitted such that the linear combinations of the remaining basis functions are still dense in \(C[0,1]\) for \(n\to\infty\). Since it is necessary to keep the first and the last basis function only basis functions with index \(k\in R_ n\subset \{1,\dots, n-1\}\) can be omitted. It turns out that the quantity \[ \rho(R_ n):= \min\{r,n- r: r\in R_ n\} \] is essential. The authors obtain different solutions for the cases \(\rho(R_ n)= O(1)\) or \(\rho(R_ n)\to \infty\) \((n\to\infty)\). Roughly speeking the main results show that it is much more favourable to drop more basis functions with index \(k\) from the ``middle'' than from the ``ends'' of the set \(\{1,\dots, n-1\}\). The proofs make use of facts about incomplete polynomials and from the classical Müntz theory.