Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2013 / iii / Paper 61 / 1 / 2

Let $m$ be a positive integer and let the trigonometric polynomial $t_n$ have frequencies only in $[-n,n]$. For every $j\ge n$, its Fourier partial sum is the polynomial itself: $s_j(t_n)=t_n$. Every term in the defining average of the de la Vallée Poussin sum therefore equals $t_n$, givingThis is exact reproduction of the degree-at-most-$n$ trigonometric polynomials, irrespective of the positive averaging length $m$.

The indexing of the Fejér sums givesSubtracting removes precisely the initial $n$ Fourier partial sums. ThusFor $n=0$, omit the second term, so that no undefined ${\sigma }_0$ is needed. Apply the triangle inequality and the uniform-norm contraction of Fejér summation estimate to getHence the operator norm of the de la Vallée Poussin sum is at most $1+2n/m$.

For any degree-at-most-$n$ trigonometric polynomial $t_n$, linearity and reproduction giveThe operator norm bound in the preceding part yieldsTake the infimum over all such trigonometric polynomials. By the definition of best uniform approximation,No choice of a minimizer is needed for this argument. It is an instance of the polynomial reproduction error bound: a bounded linear reproducing operator has error at most $1+\Vert P\Vert$ times the optimal error.