The distribution of zeros and poles of asymptotically extremal rational functions for Zolotarev's problem (Q5937256)

Along with major contributions to the algebraic number theory, Egor Zolotarev (1847-1878) solved several important problems of the approximation theory that still attract researchers. Thus (this is a reformulation of the so-called third Zolotarev problem) he found \[ \sup _{r_n} \frac{\min \{|r_n (x)|: x \in F \}} {\max \{|r_n (x)|: x \in [-1,1]\}}, \] where \(F= \{x \in\mathbb{R}: |x|\geq 1/k \}\), \(0<k<1\) and the \(\sup\) is taken over all rational functions of degree less than or equal to \(n\) (both their numerator and denominator). The present authors consider a far-reaching generalizatin of the problem, where \(\min\) and \(\max\) above involve a weighted function, instead of two segments in \(\mathbb{R}\) a condenser, i.e., two disjoint compact sets in \(\mathbb{C}\), is considered, and the rational functions considered are of form \(r= P_m / P_n\), where the polynomials \(P_m\) and \(P_n\) have degrees \(\leq m\) and \(\leq n\), respectively. More information concerning this problem, can be found in the book by \textit{E. B. Saff} and \textit{V. Totik} [``Logarithmic potentials with external fields'' (1997; Zbl 0881.31001)]. In the paper under review the authors study the limit distribution of zeros and poles of asymptotically optimal functions for the extremal problem under consideration if \(m+n \rightarrow \infty\), \(m/n \rightarrow \tau /(1- \tau)\), \(0< \tau < 1\) is fixed.