Euler \({\mathcal L}\)-splines and an extremal problem for periodic functions (Q1089543)

The authors demonstrate that the so-called Euler \({\mathcal L}\)-splines are extremal with respect to a rather general class of differential operators. For a given period \(T>0\), let \(W_ T^{(n)}=\{f\in W^ n_{\infty}:\) \(f(t+T)=f(t),t\in {\mathbb{R}}\}\). Let \(p_ n\) be a monic polynomial of degree n with \(p_ n(0)=0\). Then there is a unique function s satisfying \(s\in W^{(n)}\); \(s(t+T/2)=-s(t),\) \(t\in {\mathbb{R}}\); \(p_ n(D)s(t)=-1\), \(0<t<T/2\). This function is denoted by \(E(p_ n,T/2,\cdot)\), and called an Euler \({\mathcal L}\)-spline. The authors establish the following extremal property of Euler \({\mathcal L}\)-spline: If \(p_ k\) is a monic polynomial of degree k that divides \(p_ n\), then for all \(f\in W_ T^{(n)}\), \(\| p_ k(D)Df\| \leq \| p_ k(D)DE(p_ n,T/2,\cdot)\| \| p_ n(D)f\|,\) where the equality holds if and only if for some \(\beta\in {\mathbb{R}}\) and \(\xi\in [0,T]\), \(f(t)=\beta E(p_ n,T/2,t-\xi),\) \(t\in {\mathbb{R}}\). The above inequality is a generalization of the well-known Landau-Kolmogorov inequalities.