On a conjecture of D. B. Hunter

Abstract

We consider errors of positive quadrature formulas applied to Chebyshev polynomials. These errors play an important role in the error analysis for many function classes. Hunter conjectured that the supremum of all errors in Gaussian quadrature of Chebyshev polynomials equals the norm of the quadrature formula. We give examples, for which Hunter's conjecture does not hold. However, we prove that the conjecture is valid for all positive quadratures if the supremum is replaced by the limit superior. Considering a fixed positive quadrature formula and the sequence of all Chebyshev polynomials, we show that large errors are rare.