Error estimates for thin plate spline approximation in the disk (Q944230)

When using radial basis functions (often with interpolation) on scattered data in more than one dimension, the saturation order of the approximation process is of special interest. While a number of upper and lower bounds for the approximation with thin-plate splines are already known for two dimensions, so far the saturation order has not been identified. In this paper, this gap is closed and the best achievable order is stated for approximating on a disk (in two dimensions). Moreover, this result is made even more useful by showing how the best possible rates for the interior (namely, order four) can be extended to bounded domains by accumulating more centres near the boundary.