For a normed space , let be its continuous dual space and its bidual space. Its canonical embedding into the bidual is
The definition of a reflexive space in this setting is
The Hahn-Banach theorem makes a linear map that is an isometry. For any normed space , its continuous dual space is a Banach space: a Cauchy sequence in the operator norm has scalar limits , and the uniform Cauchy bound proves both boundedness of and . Apply this with to see that is complete. If is onto, the isometry transfers this completeness to . Therefore
The kernel is complete: the map is an isometry from with its absolute-value norm onto with the supremum norm.
Define a linear map by
The fundamental theorem of calculus gives and . Also,
Thus is a bounded right inverse, and is a Banach space. Applying part (c),
Choose the continuously differentiable functions
The estimate for gives
Thus by uniform convergence, and the triangle inequality gives . The sequence is a Cauchy sequence in , but its unique possible supremum norm limit is , which is not differentiable at zero. That limit is outside , so
By the mean value theorem, a continuously differentiable function with zero derivative on is constant. Thus the kernel of the differentiation operator is
It is a closed set by the finite-dimensional subspace is closed theorem, applied in the normed space . It is proper because the function has nonzero derivative.
For , take . Its supremum norm is at most one, whereas and . Hence
The bounded linear functional from part (i) satisfies , where is its operator norm. Hence
These are equivalent norms. Applied to , the inequalities show that a sequence is a Cauchy sequence for either norm exactly when it is one for the other. Applied to , they show that the two norms give the same limits in . Thus every Cauchy sequence has a limit in one norm precisely when it does in the other:
Since is proper, is a nonzero linear functional. Choose with , by rescaling any vector outside its kernel. For every ,
If , applying gives . Consequently this is a direct sum, and the quotient vector space has dimension one. This computes the codimension of a vector subspace:
To prove boundedness without assuming completeness, use the linear functional with closed kernel criterion directly. Since is a closed set and , the distance
is positive. If , then , so
For the resulting estimate is immediate. Therefore
Here denotes the continuous dual space.
Put and form its period-one periodization of an integrable function
The function is not a Schwartz function, so justify the needed Poisson summation formula directly. For every , its derivative satisfies as . Thus the Weierstrass M-test gives uniform convergence on of this series and each differentiated series. It follows that is a smooth period-one periodic function.
Absolute integrability and Fubini's theorem allow its Fourier coefficients to be computed by splitting the real line into unit intervals:
These Fourier coefficients are absolutely summable. Their Fourier series defines a continuous periodic function with the same Fourier coefficients as ; uniqueness of Fourier coefficients in L1 identifies the two almost everywhere, and continuity then identifies them everywhere. Evaluating at zero gives the rigorously justified Poisson summation formula
Rearranging proves
The last series is a geometric series with sum . Equivalently, the left side is , where is the hyperbolic cotangent.
Splitting the Fourier transform integral at zero gives two absolutely convergent integrals:
Both and are integrable functions. Let , so . The duality property of the Fourier transform, or Fourier inversion in tempered distributions, gives
These Fourier transforms have continuous representatives by the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma, so the identity holds at every . Since is an even function,
Use the smooth periodic partition of unity above and define the Fourier coefficients of the periodic distribution by
These are the smooth-window Fourier coefficients of a periodic distribution for period . The finite Schwartz seminorm bound for , restricted to the fixed compact support of , gives for some . Indeed, only finitely many derivatives of occur, and each contributes at most a fixed power of .
For a Schwartz function , the preceding Fourier series formula and yield
All derivatives of this series converge uniformly. The localization formula in the previous answer therefore gives
Consequently the Fourier transform of a periodic distribution is
The polynomial bound on and rapid decay of make every displayed pairing absolutely convergent. In particular there are no derivatives of Dirac delta distributions in this formula.
The inverse Fourier transform of is . Applying continuous Fourier inversion on tempered distributions to the symmetric partial sums gives
Explicitly, for every Schwartz function , the pairing of the partial sum with is , which converges absolutely to . The Fourier transform formula also proves that is independent of the chosen smooth periodic partition of unity. For a locally integrable periodic function it reduces, by splitting the integral into periods, to .
Let be the Dirac comb. Pair the given identity with the Schwartz function . On the left this gives . On the right,
Therefore the Fourier series is
The Fourier bounds for Schwartz functions imply for every . For each nonnegative integer , choose to obtain . Thus the Fourier series and every differentiated Fourier series converge absolutely and uniformly on all of . In particular convergence holds in the topology of smooth periodic functions, defined by uniform convergence of every derivative on one period, and also in tempered distributions.
A distribution is a periodic distribution when
Iteration gives invariance under all integer multiples of . For a tempered distribution the identity also holds for every Schwartz function, since test functions are dense in the Schwartz space: multiplying by cutoff functions equal to one near zero gives such an approximation in every Schwartz seminorm.
For define . The smooth periodic partition of unity gives with convergence in the Schwartz space. Indeed, each is supported where , and the generalized Leibniz rule and arbitrarily rapid decay of the derivatives of give, for every ,
Consequently continuity and periodicity of the tempered distribution give
For the last interchange, all summands have the fixed compact support of and their derivatives decrease faster than any power of . Hence the series converges in the space of test functions, as well as in the Schwartz space. Notice that itself need not be a Schwartz function; the factor makes the pairing legitimate.
The periodization of a Schwartz function is
For every nonnegative integer , the Schwartz seminorms give uniformly for . The Weierstrass M-test gives absolute and uniform convergence there of the defining series and all its differentiated series. Termwise differentiation proves that is a smooth function, with . Reindexing the absolutely convergent series proves , so it is a periodic function.
For an explicit smooth periodic partition of unity, choose the bump function
It is a test function, positive on . The smooth function is periodic and strictly positive, since every has a translate in . Set
Division preserves smoothness because , and the support remains contained in .
Write , , and . By the Sobolev space hypotheses, and belong to the L2 space. Their product is an integrable function by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Thus is a locally integrable function defining a tempered distribution, with estimate
The supremum is controlled by finitely many Schwartz seminorms. Define the convolution of Sobolev distributions by
It is independent of the representatives chosen for , and the convolution theorem shows that it agrees with ordinary convolution for Schwartz functions. More generally, approximate by Schwartz functions in their respective Sobolev norms; the displayed estimate shows convergence of the products in tempered distributions, so their ordinary convolutions converge to this definition. For that also satisfy the stated Sobolev space hypotheses, the ordinary convolution theorem gives the same result.
There need not be any real with . Choose
Here is an indicator function. Since and every weight is bounded above and below by positive constants on , both and belong to every Sobolev space. But their convolution has Fourier transform , and for every real ,
Thus . The obstruction is failure of local square integrability at zero; a weight controlling large frequencies cannot fix it.
The distributional derivative is defined by . Since differentiation under the integral sign gives , we obtain
This proves the Fourier transform of a derivative identity for all tempered distributions.
If , their Fourier transforms are represented by locally square-integrable functions, and the identity identifies with almost everywhere. Hence the Sobolev norms satisfy
so for every real .
For real , the Sobolev space consists of those tempered distributions whose Fourier transform is represented by a locally square-integrable function and for which
This is the Sobolev norm used here; inserting the fixed factor gives an equivalent convention.
For the constant function , Fourier inversion at zero gives
A nonzero Dirac delta distribution cannot be represented by a locally square-integrable function. Indeed, if represented , choose a test function with , and put . On a fixed compact interval containing their supports, Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives
Thus . Every Sobolev space requires local square integrability of the Fourier transform, regardless of how negative is. Therefore
The zero constant function belongs to every Sobolev space.
Set . This is a Schwartz function and its Fourier transform is . The convolution theorem gives
The convolution of two Schwartz functions is again a Schwartz function: differentiating under the integral and expanding bounds every weighted derivative by products of integrable and bounded weighted derivatives. Evaluate Fourier inversion for this convolution at zero:
The Schwartz space is dense in the L2 space. For choose Schwartz functions in the L2 norm. The identity makes a Cauchy sequence in the L2 space, and its limit defines , independently of the approximation. It agrees with the distributional Fourier transform, because Cauchy-Schwarz inequality makes convergence in the L2 norm imply convergence when paired with every Schwartz function. For it therefore agrees almost everywhere with the ordinary Fourier transform.
The extension is onto: its image is closed by the norm identity and contains the Schwartz space, since Fourier inversion maps that space to itself. This proves Plancherel theorem:
Its inverse is the extension of the inverse Fourier transform, with limits understood in the L2 norm.
Let , and define reflection of a tempered distribution by . The Fourier inversion theorem on the Schwartz space says . Thus
Reflection commutes with the Fourier transform, since and the same relation follows by duality for tempered distributions. Define the inverse Fourier transform on tempered distributions by
It follows that
In particular is the general Fourier inversion formula. When is an integrable function, this is the regular distribution of ; an arbitrary tempered distribution need not have an ordinary integral representation.
If , then is an integrable function, so the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma supplies a continuous representative of its Fourier transform. Equivalently, in the mixture for the majorant is integrable at zero precisely when . In this case dominated convergence also gives
If , Fatou's lemma applied along any sequence of nonzero tending to zero gives
The divergence comes from zero, where the exponent is at most . A continuous representative would agree with almost everywhere. Since both are continuous on each open half-line, they must agree everywhere on those half-lines: a nonzero continuous difference would be nonzero on an interval of positive Lebesgue measure. The displayed blow-up then contradicts continuity of at zero. Changing a value at one point cannot remove this singularity. Consequently
Since , its regular distribution satisfies
so is a tempered distribution for every .
Put . The defining integral of the gamma function, with , gives
The Fourier transform of a Gaussian suggests the following representative for the Fourier transform of an inverse power of one plus x squared:
All factors are positive. Tonelli's theorem evaluates its total integral, allowing an infinite value at the single point zero:
Assign any finite value at zero if necessary. This gives an integrable function with .
To verify equality as tempered distributions, take any Schwartz function . Substituting the mixture into is justified by
For each , Fubini's theorem and the Fourier transform of a Gaussian identify the inner pairing with . Interchanging the resulting integrals is valid because their absolute value is bounded by after integrating the positive kernel. Therefore
Finally, on a compact set with , the mixture integrand is bounded by , which is integrable both at zero and at infinity. Dominated convergence proves continuity there. Hence .
A tempered distribution is a continuous linear functional . Equivalently, for some integer and constant ,
The Fourier transform of a tempered distribution is defined by
The Fourier bounds for Schwartz functions make the right side a continuous linear functional on the Schwartz space, so is again a tempered distribution.
For an integrable function , the regular distribution acts by . The estimate proves it is a tempered distribution. Since , Fubini's theorem gives
Thus the distributional Fourier transform agrees with the ordinary Fourier transform.

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
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    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
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    Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
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