On Regularity and Mass Concentration Phenomena for the Sign Uncertainty Principle

Abstract

The sign uncertainty principle of Bourgain et al. asserts that if a function $$f:{\mathbb {R}}^d\rightarrow {\mathbb {R}}$$ and its Fourier transform $${\widehat{f}}$$ are nonpositive at the origin and not identically zero, then they cannot both be nonnegative outside an arbitrarily small neighborhood of the origin. In this article, we establish some equivalent formulations of the sign uncertainty principle, and in particular prove that minimizing sequences exist within the Schwartz class when $$d=1$$ . We further address a complementary sign uncertainty principle, and show that corresponding near-minimizers concentrate a universal proportion of their positive mass near the origin in all dimensions.