 Solution

Convergence ${\varphi }_j\to \varphi$ in the space of test functions means that all supports lie in one compact set $K\subset \mathbb{R}$ and $\Vert {\varphi }_j^{(r)}-{\varphi }^{(r)}{\Vert }_{\infty }\to 0$ for every integer $r\ge 0$. An eventual common compact support is equivalent, since finitely many initial supports can be added to $K$.

Write the standard mollifier as ${\rho }_{\epsilon }(x)={\epsilon }^{-1}\rho (x/\epsilon )$, where $\rho \in \mathcal{D}(\mathbb{R})$ is nonnegative, supported in $[-1,1]$, and has integral one. For $0<\epsilon \le 1$, the convolution ${\rho }_{\epsilon }\ast \varphi$ has support in the fixed compact set $\mathrm{supp}\varphi +[-1,1]$. The given convolution derivative identity yieldsEach ${\varphi }^{(r)}$ is uniformly continuous; more explicitly, the mean value theorem bounds the absolute value by $\epsilon \Vert {\varphi }^{(r+1)}{\Vert }_{\infty }\int |y|\rho (y)dy$, uniformly in $x$. Thus

If ${\varphi }_j\to 0$ in the space of test functions and $K$ is a common compact support, then $\Vert {\varphi }_j{\Vert }_{L^1}\le |K|\Vert {\varphi }_j{\Vert }_{\infty }\to 0$, where $|K|$ is its Lebesgue measure.

The mollifiers themselves have no limit in the L1 space. If ${\rho }_{\epsilon }\to g$ in that norm, then for each $\delta >0$ the integral of $|g|$ on $\{|x|>\delta \}$ is zero, because ${\rho }_{\epsilon }$ vanishes there for $\epsilon <\delta$. Hence $g=0$ almost everywhere. This contradicts $\Vert {\rho }_{\epsilon }{\Vert }_{L^1}=1$. Therefore $\boxed{{\rho }_{\epsilon }\text{ does not converge in }{L}^1(\mathbb{R})}$.