English

Repeated integrals of increasing functions

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2025-12-03 v1

Abstract

Motivated by a problem on comonotone approximation of CnC^n functions by entire functions, for increasing functions f ⁣:[0,1][0,1]f\colon[0,1]\to[0,1], we characterize the possible values of (a,b,c)(a,b,c), where a=I(f)(1)a=I(f)(1), b=I2(f)(1)b=I^2(f)(1), c=I3(f)(1)c=I^3(f)(1) (II is the integral operator I(f)(x)=0xf(t)dtI(f)(x)=\int_0^xf(t)\,dt), as those which satisfy the conditions 0a10\leq a\leq 1, a2/2ba/2a^2/2\leq b\leq a/2, 2b23ac2b^2\leq 3ac, a2+4b2+6c6ac+2ab+2ba^2 + 4b^2 + 6c\leq 6ac +2ab+2b, and 0ca/60\leq c\leq a/6. Our main theorem states that if a,b,ca,b,c are real numbers for which the inequalities are strict, then there is a function ff satisfying a=I(f)(1)a=I(f)(1), b=I2(f)(1)b=I^2(f)(1), c=I3(f)(1)c=I^3(f)(1) which is CC^\infty with f(0)=0f(0)=0, f(1)=1f(1)=1, Df(x)>0Df(x)>0 for 0<x<10<x<1, and whose derivatives Djf(0)D^jf(0) and Djf(1)D^jf(1), j1j\geq 1, are arbitrary as long as they are consistent with the increasing nature of ff. The construction of ff proceeds by starting with a continuous parametrization sρsC([0,1])s\mapsto \rho_s\in C^\infty([0,1]) defined on an open subset of R4\mathbb{R}^4, and composing with successive continuous transversals through the open set to fix the values of Ij(ρs)(1)I^j(\rho_s)(1) for j=0,1,2,3j=0,1,2,3. Addressing the aforementioned problem on comonotone approximation, we examine the set VnR2(n+1)V_n\subseteq\mathbb{R}^{2(n+1)} of possible values Djf(0)D^jf(0), Djf(1)D^jf(1), j=0,,nj=0,\dots,n, of the derivatives of a CnC^n function at the endpoints when DnfD^nf is increasing but not constant. We make a conjecture about the nature of this set and prove our conjecture for n3n\leq 3 as a consequence of the theorem mentioned above.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.02151,
  title  = {Repeated integrals of increasing functions},
  author = {Maxim R. Burke and Maleeha Haris and Madhavendra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.02151},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

37 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:04:34.229Z