de la Vallée Poussin sum Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
This average of Fourier partial sums reproduces every degree-at-most- trigonometric polynomial. With ,
The bound follows because Fejér summation is a uniform-norm contraction. For , the term involving is omitted.
Du Bois-Reymond theorem 2026-10-14
There are continuous functions whose Fourier series diverges at a prescribed point. In contrast, the Fejér kernel is nonnegative and has integral one, so Fejér summation is a uniform-norm contraction. The resulting Fejér sums need not be positive: for the constant function , every sum is .
For a continuous -periodic function, define the Fourier coefficients and Fourier partial sum by
The Fejér sum is the arithmetic average of the first Fourier partial sums:
Thus has degree at most , whereas has degree at most . These indexing conventions matter in the identity in (b). Throughout, is a positive integer; when , any term is interpreted as zero without introducing .
For later estimates, the Fejér kernel in the PDF's normalization is
The apparent singularities are removable. The squared modulus makes nonnegative, and integrating its finite exponential expansion leaves only the diagonal terms, so . In particular Fejér summation is a uniform-norm contraction:
Take and . Since , every cosine term vanishes at , and
Set and . For , the sine argument lies in , where . The initial part therefore has a common sign and magnitude at least . The remaining tail has absolute value at most
The reverse triangle inequality now gives
for sufficiently large , because . This establishes the sharp logarithmic lower bound
The constant can be reduced to include the finitely many small indices: for the displayed lower bound is positive; for the first sine exceeds the tail bound , and for the first two sines contribute , exceeding the remaining tail bound . At the logarithmic right side is zero.
Here but is not Lipschitz continuous, so a first modulus of continuity bound is sufficient by the first Jackson theorem for periodic approximation but is not necessary. Nor is the weaker necessary bound sufficient: an explicit comparison is the logarithmic cusp with slow trigonometric approximation
extended periodically. On it is increasing and concave, so its largest increment over distance is from zero, giving for .
For a concrete approximation lower bound, its cosine Fourier coefficients satisfy
Indeed, integration by parts once replaces by ; integrating that against sine with primitive yields the stated positive integral. Its logarithmic growth follows because stays bounded by the Dirichlet test. All are negative and absolutely summable.
Let , a de la Vallée Poussin sum. Its multiplier is one for , for , and zero for ; the Fejér summation is a uniform-norm contraction property gives . Thus the functional has norm at most four and vanishes on every degree-at-most- trigonometric polynomial. Because the remaining multiplier weights are nonnegative and all ,
The first Jackson theorem for periodic approximation gives the corresponding upper bound. The same first-modulus order occurs with both and . Therefore first-modulus rates alone do not characterize the endpoint approximation class, unlike the matched direct and inverse rates for .
Take . In the normalization used here, the Dirichlet kernel has the finite expansion
Averaging a finite number of the integral formulas for the Fourier partial sums is legitimate by linearity of the integral. Hence the Fejér sum is convolution with
To obtain the nonnegative form of the Fejér kernel, expand a squared geometric sum:
The coefficient counts pairs of indices whose difference is . Dividing by and summing the geometric progression gives
At the ratio has its continuous limiting value . Thus this is a continuous, nonnegative trigonometric polynomial, not a kernel with genuine singularities.
Integration over a full period kills every nonconstant cosine term, so
Translation invariance of integration over the circle consequently gives, for every ,
The first step is the integral triangle inequality, the second uses nonnegativity, and the last uses the mass just computed. Taking the supremum norm proves
In particular, Fejér summation is a uniform-norm contraction. The factor , rather than , is essential for the half-normalized Dirichlet kernel and Fejér kernel in this problem.