On the positivity of average sums of sine series with monotone coefficients (Q2666635)

The authors consider the series \[ \sum_{k=1}^\infty b_k\sin kx, \] where \(b_1>0\) and \(\{b_k\}\) is a sequence of non-negative real numbers monotonically converging to \(0\). It is known that the series is uniformly convergent on a set \(E \subset \mathbb R\) if the distance between \(E\) and \(2\pi\mathbb Z\) is strictly positive: \(\inf\{|x-y|: x\in E, y \in 2\pi\mathbb Z\}>0\), where \(\mathbb Z\) denotes the set of integers and \(2\pi\mathbb Z =\{2\pi\nu: \nu\in \mathbb Z\}\) (see [\textit{A. Zygmund}, Trigonometric series. Volumes I and II combined. With a foreword by Robert Fefferman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2002; Zbl 1084.42003)], Chap. V). An important example is \[ \sum_{k=1}^\infty \frac{\sin kx}{k}= \begin{cases} \dfrac{\pi-x}{2} & \text{if \(0<x<2\pi\), } \\ 0 & \text{if \(x=0\),} \end{cases} \] which defines a \(2\pi\) periodic function on \(\mathbb R\). The following result is proved. Theorem. Let \(x, y \in (0, \pi]\) with \(y\leq x/2\). Then \[\int_y^x \left(\sum_{k=1}^\infty b_k\sin kt\right) \, dt \geq 0; \] the equality holds only when \(x=\pi\), \(y=\pi/2\), \(b_1=b_2\) and \(b_k=0\) for all \(k\geq 3\). The conjugate Dirichlet kernels \[\widetilde{D}_n(t)=\sum_{k=1}^n \sin kt \] are examples of the functions defined by the series in the theorem. The proof of the theorem is reduced to this case in view of the relation \[\sum_{k=1}^\infty b_k\sin kt= \sum_{k=1}^\infty (b_k- b_{k+1}) \widetilde{D}_k(t), \] which can be seen by applying summation by parts.