English

Local sign changes of polynomials

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2023-01-18 v1 Spectral Theory

Abstract

The trigonometric monomial cos(k,x)\cos(\left\langle k, x \right\rangle) on Td\mathbb{T}^d, a harmonic polynomial p:Sd1Rp: \mathbb{S}^{d-1} \rightarrow \mathbb{R} of degree kk and a Laplacian eigenfunction Δf=k2f-\Delta f = k^2 f have root in each ball of radius k1\sim \|k\|^{-1} or k1\sim k^{-1}, respectively. We extend this to linear combinations and show that for any trigonometric polynomials on Td\mathbb{T}^d, any polynomial pR[x1,,xd]p \in \mathbb{R}[x_1, \dots, x_d] restricted to Sd1\mathbb{S}^{d-1} and any linear combination of global Laplacian eigenfunctions on Rd \mathbb{R}^d with d{2,3}d \in \left\{2,3\right\} the same property holds for any ball whose radius is given by the sum of the inverse constituent frequencies. We also refine the fact that an eigenfunction Δϕ=λϕ- \Delta \phi = \lambda \phi in ΩRn\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n has a root in each B(x,αnλ1/2)B(x, \alpha_n \lambda^{-1/2}) ball: the positive and negative mass in each B(x,βnλ1/2)B(x,\beta_n \lambda^{-1/2}) ball cancel when integrated against xy2n\|x-y\|^{2-n}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2301.07031,
  title  = {Local sign changes of polynomials},
  author = {Stefan Steinerberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.07031},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T08:13:40.060Z