Weighted Fekete points on the real line and the unit circle (Q2228028)

Given a closed set \(E\subset\mathbb{C}\), a finite set of points \(Z_n=\{z_k\}_{k=1}^n\) in \(E\), \(n\ge2\), and a continuous weight function \(w:\ E\rightarrow [0,\infty)\), the weighted Vandermonde determinant associated with \(Z_n\) and \(E\) is defined by \[ V(Z_n,E):=\prod_{1\le j< k\le n}(z_j-z_k)w(z_j)w(z_k). \] The weighted Fekete points are those maximizing the \(n\)-th diameter \[ \delta_n^w(E):=\sup_{Z_n} |V(Z_n,E)|^{\frac2{n(n-1)}}\,. \] The explicit description of such sets of points is in general a hard problem, and no such examples have been known so far in the weighted case. The main goal of the paper is to establish a complete description of all collections of the Fekete points for the weight function \(|x-ia|^{-1}\), \(a>0\), on the real line. Theorem. A set \(F_n^w\), \(n\ge2\), is the weighted Fekete set for this weight function if and only if \[ F_n^w=\{x_1,\ldots,x_n\}=\{a\tan(\gamma+k\pi/n), \ k=0,1,\ldots,n-1\}, \] where \(\gamma\) is an arbitrary real number in the interval \((-\pi/2,-\pi/2+\pi/n)\).