On positive definite piecewise linear functions and their applications (Q2446170)

The central result of the paper is the following one: Given \(h>0\), a piecewise linear function (linear spline) with nodes \(\{ (kh, c_k)\}\), \(k\in \mathbb Z\), is positive definite on \(\mathbb R\) if and only if the sequence of complex numbers \(\{ c_k\}_{k\in \mathbb Z}\) is positive definite on the group of integers. This implies, in particular, that a linear interpolating spline to a positive definite function on \(\mathbb R\) at the nodes \(kh\), \(k\in \mathbb Z\), is also positive definite. The rest of the paper contains a large variety of applications of these two apparently quite natural results to positive trigonometric polynomials and to some extremal problems in function theory. For instance, the author produces several operators acting on nonnegative trigonometric polynomials that preserve positivity (Theorems 3 and 4). Another set of applications belongs to the relation between some extremal problems of the type \[ C_p(\delta)=\sup \bigg\{ \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty} f^p(x) dx \bigg\}, \] where the \(\sup\) is taken over all continuous and positive definite functions \(f\) on \(\mathbb R\), which are supported on \([-\delta, \delta]\) and such that \(f(0)=1\), as well as of the type \[ D_p(N)=\sup \bigg\{ \sum_{k\in \mathbb Z} c^p_k \bigg\}, \] with the \(\sup\) taken over all positive definite sequences \(\{ c_k\}_{k\in \mathbb Z}\) on the group of integers with \(c_k=0\) for \(|k|>N\) and \(c_0=1\).