Periodic decompositions of continuous functions (Q2277589)

A class of real-valued functions of a real variable is said to have the decomposition property if, whenever f is in the class and \(\Delta a_ 1\circ...\circ \Delta a_ n\circ f=0,\) where \(\Delta a\circ f=f(x+a)- f(x),\) then f can be written as the sum of n functions \(f_ 1,...,f_ n\) from the class so that \(\Delta a_ i\circ f_ i=0,\) that is, so that each \(f_ i\) is periodic with period \(a_ i\). The main result of this paper is that the class of all bounded continuous functions BC(\({\mathbb{R}})\) has the decomposition property. The proof is achieved by considering two subcases: the \(a_ i\) are pairwise incommensurable and the \(a_ i\) are pairwise commensurable. These cases are then combined to show that the decomposition property holds in general for BC(\({\mathbb{R}})\). The authors denote by \(C_ n\) the smallest number such that whenever \(f\in BC({\mathbb{R}})\) and \(\Delta a_ 1\circ...\circ \Delta a_ n\circ f=0\) then there is a decomposition of f with each \(\| f_ i\| \leq C_ n\| f\|,\) where \(\| \cdot \|\) is the sup norm. They show that \(C_ 2=1\) and, in general \(C_ n\leq 2^{n-2}\); moreover, in case the \(a_ i\) are pairwise incommensurable, \(f_ i\) can be obtained with \(\| f_ i\| \leq (2-1/n)\| f\|.\) Lastly, decompositions of unbounded f are considered. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for f to have a decomposition of the form \(p+f_ 1+...+f_ n,\) where p is a polynomial and \(f_ i\in BC({\mathbb{R}})\). The proofs are accomplished by induction using a sequence of short, ingenious lemmas and the paper is basically self-contained.