On the translates of powers of a continuous periodic function (Q1958530)

Let \(C(\mathbb T)\) denote the Banach space of \(2\pi\)-periodic, real valued continuous functions on \(\mathbb T = \{z\in \mathbb C: |z|=1\}\). For \(f \in C(\mathbb T)\), let \(V(f)\) denote the subspace generated by all translates of non-negative integer powers of \(f\) and for \(\lambda \in \mathbb R\), let \(A_{\lambda}=\{t: f(t) \geqslant \lambda \}\). The main result is as follows. For \(f \in C(\mathbb T)\) the subspace \(V(f)\) is dense in \(C(\mathbb T)\) if, and only if, there is no common zero for the Fourier transforms of the characteristic functions of \(A_{\lambda}\), \(\lambda \in \mathbb R \). In particular, it follows that if \(f\) takes a given value at only one point then \(V(f)\) is dense in \(C(\mathbb T)\).