Towards a \(p\)-adic Müntz theorem
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Towards a \(p\)-adic Müntz theorem
zbMATH Open document ID: 1080.46051
published in: Bulletin of the Belgian Mathematical Society - Simon Stevin
publication date: 2005-12-02T00:00:00Z
review text: The classical Weierstrass theorem states that every \(f \in C[a,b]\) (the space of all continuous functions \([a,b] \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\), \(a,b \in \mathbb{R}\), \(a < b\)) can uniformly be approximated by polynomial functions. It is a natural question to ask which monomials can be deleted in the approximation process. The answer was given by \textit{Ch. H. Müntz} in [Schwarz--Festschr. 303--312 (1914; JFM 45.0633.02)]: A sequence \(n_0 < n_1 < \ldots\) in \(\{ 0,1,2, \ldots \}\) has the property that the linear span of \(x \mapsto x^{n_i}\) (\(i \in \{ 0,1,2, \ldots \}\)) is uniformly dense in \(C[0,1]\) if and only if \(n_0=0\) and \(\sum_{i=1}^{\infty} 1/n_i = \infty\). In the present paper, the author considers the \(p\)-adic case. Let \(p\) be a prime number and let \(\mathbb{Q}_p\) be the field of the \(p\)-adic numbers with the usual \(p\)-adic valuation \(\left| \; . \; \right| \). For an infinite compact subset \(X\) of \(\mathbb{Q}_p\), let \(C(X)\) be the Banach space of all continuous functions \(X \rightarrow \mathbb{Q}_p\), equipped with the maximum norm. The paper is concerned with determining the Müntz sets for \(X\), i.e., the subsets \(S\) of \(\mathbb{N}_0:=\{ 0,1,2, \ldots \}\) having the property that the linear span of \(x \mapsto x^{n}\), \(n \in S\), is uniformly dense in \(C(X)\). The starting point is the well-known \(p\)-adic version of the Weierstrass theorem, proved by \textit{I. Kaplansky} in [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 1, 356--357 (1950; Zbl 0038.07002)]: Every continuous function \(X \rightarrow \mathbb{Q}_p\) can uniformly be approximated by polynomial functions. Then, in a first step, the author describes the Müntz sets for \(\mathbb{B}_p:= \{ x \in \mathbb{Q}_p : \left| 1-x \right| <1 \}\): A subset of \(\mathbb{N}_0\) is a Müntz set for \(\mathbb{B}_p\) if and only if it is infinite. In a second step, he describes the Müntz sets for \(\mathbb{T}_p:= \{ x \in \mathbb{Q}_p : \left| x \right| = 1 \}\): If \(p \neq 2\), a subset \(S\) o…
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 46S10
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 12J25
zbMATH DE Number: 2235096
zbMATH Keywords: Banach spaces of continuous functions
zbMATH Keywords: \(p\)-adic Müntz theorem
author: Wim Schikhof
reviewed by: Cristina Pérez-García
MaRDI profile type: MaRDI publication profile
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2235096