Simultaneous zero-free approximation and universal optimal polynomial approximants

Let $E$ be a closed subset of the unit circle of measure zero. Recently, Beise and M\"uller showed the existence of a function in the Hardy space $H^2$ for which the partial sums of its Taylor series approximate any continuous function on $E$. In this paper, we establish an analogue of this result in a non-linear setting where we consider optimal polynomial approximants of reciprocals of functions in $H^2$ instead of Taylor polynomials. The proof uses a new result on simultaneous zero-free approximation of independent interest. Our results extend to Dirichlet-type spaces $\mathcal{D}_\alpha$ for $\alpha \in [0,1]$.