Behavior of zeros of polynomials of near best approximation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the asymptotic behavior of the zeros of polynomials of near best approximation to continuous functions f on a compact set E in the case when f is analytic on the interior of E but not everywhere on the boundary. For example, suppose E is a finite union of compact intervals of the real line and f is a continuous function on E, but is not analytic on E; then we show (cf. Corollary 2.2) that every point of E is a limit point of zeros of the polynomials of best uniform approximation to f on E. This fact answers a question posed by P. Borwein who showed that, for the case when E is a single interval and f is real-valued, then the above hypotheses on f imply that at least one point of E is the limit point of zeros of such polynomials.