English

Littlewood Polynomials with Small $L^4$ Norm

Number Theory 2013-09-19 v2 Information Theory Combinatorics math.IT

Abstract

Littlewood asked how small the ratio f4/f2||f||_4/||f||_2 (where .α||.||_\alpha denotes the LαL^\alpha norm on the unit circle) can be for polynomials ff having all coefficients in {1,1}\{1,-1\}, as the degree tends to infinity. Since 1988, the least known asymptotic value of this ratio has been 7/64\sqrt[4]{7/6}, which was conjectured to be minimum. We disprove this conjecture by showing that there is a sequence of such polynomials, derived from the Fekete polynomials, for which the limit of this ratio is less than 22/194\sqrt[4]{22/19}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1205.0260,
  title  = {Littlewood Polynomials with Small $L^4$ Norm},
  author = {Jonathan Jedwab and Daniel J. Katz and Kai-Uwe Schmidt},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.0260},
  year   = {2013}
}

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R2 v1 2026-06-21T20:57:18.686Z