Fast decreasing rational functions (Q1968995)

In this very interesting paper, the authors establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of rational functions with a given rate of decay. They thereby extend to rational functions, a topic studied for polynomials by researchers such as V. Totik and K. Ivanov. They also apply their results to rational approximation of of \(|x|\). We formulate an attractive special case of their results. Let \(\varphi:[0,1]\to [0,\infty)\) be increasing, continuous, concave and have \(\varphi(0)=0\). Then there exist rational functions \(r_n(z)(x)= P_n(x)\) (with \(P_n\) a polynomial of degree \(\leq n)\), satisfying \[ |r_n(x)|\leq\exp \bigl(o(n))- n\varphi(x) \bigr),\;x \in [0,1],\;n\geq 1, \] if \[ {2\over \pi^2}\int^1_0 \varphi(x) {dx\over x\sqrt {1-x^2}}\leq 1. \] They also show that strict inequality in this last inequality allows us to replace \(\exp(o(n))\), which is uniform in \(x\), by a constant independent of \(n\), under some mild additional conditions on \(\varphi\). The paper is well written and the proofs are clear and interesting. Much use is made of Green potentials and potential theory with external fields. The paper is essential reading for those interested in rational approximation, potential theory, extremal problems,\dots.