Modulus of smoothness

Moduli of smoothness

Modulus of smoothness of order n of a function f∈C[a,b] is the function $\omega _{n}$:[0,∞)→ℝ defined by $\omega _{n}(t,f,[a,b])=\sup _{h\in [0,t]}\sup _{x\in [a,b-nh]}|\Delta _{h}^{n}(f,x)|,$ for $t\in [0,{\frac {b-a}{n}}],$ and $\omega _{n}(t,f,[a,b])=\omega _{n}({\frac {b-a}{n}},f,[a,b]),$ for $t>{\frac {b-a}{n}}.$

Here we used the definition of the [finite difference] (n-th order forward difference)

$\Delta _{h}^{n}(f,x_{0})=\sum _{i=1}^{n}(-1)^{n-i}{\binom {n}{i}}f(x_{0}+ih).$

Properties:

1. $\omega _{n}(0)=0,$ $\omega _{n}(0+)=0.$

2. $\omega _{n}$ is non-decreasing on $[0,\infty ).$

3. $\omega _{n}$ is continuous on $[0,\infty ).$

4. $\omega _{n}(mt)\leq m^{n}\omega _{n}(t)$, $m\in \mathbb {N}$, $t\geq 0.$

5. $\omega _{n}(f,\lambda t)\leq (\lambda +1)^{n}\omega _{n}(f,\lambda t)$, $\lambda >0.$

6. For $r\in N$, denote by $W^{r}$ the space of continuous function on $[-1,1]$ that have $(r-1)$-st absolutely continuous derivative on $[-1,1]$ and $\|f^{(r)}\|_{L_{\infty }[-1,1]}<+\infty .$ If $f\in W^{r}$, then $\omega _{r}(t,f,[-1,1])\leq t^{r}\|f^{(r)}\|_{L_{\infty }[-1,1]},t\geq 0.$

   Here $\|g(x)\|_{L_{\infty }[-1,1]}=\sup _{x\in [-1,1]}|g(x)|.$ 

Application

Moduli of smoothness can be used to prove estimates on the error of approximation. Due to property (6), moduli of smoothness provide more general estimates than the estimates in terms of derivatives.

For example, moduli of smoothness are used in Whitney inequality to estimate the error of local polynomial approximation. Another application is given by the more general version of [Jackson inequality]:

For every natural number n, there exists a constant W(k) such that for any continuous function f on $[a,b]$ we have

$E_{n-1}(f)_{[a,b]}\leq W(k)\omega _{k}\left({\frac {b-a}{k}},f,[a,b]\right).$