The Landau--Kolmogorov inequality revisited

Abstract

We consider the Landau--Kolmogorov problem on a finite interval which is to find an exact bound for $\|f^{(k)}\|$, for $0 < k < n$, given bounds $\|f\| \le 1$ and $\|f^{(n)}\| \le \sigma$, with $\|\cdot\|$ being the max-norm on $[-1,1]$. In 1972, Karlin conjectured that this bound is attained at the end-point of the interval by a certain Zolotarev polynomial or spline, and that was proved for a number of particular values of $n$ or $\sigma$. Here, we provide a complete proof of this conjecture in the polynomial case, i.e. for $0 \le \sigma \le \sigma_n := \|T_n^{(n)}\|$, where $T_n$ is the Chebyshev polynomial of degree $n$. In addition, we prove a certain Schur-type estimate which is of independent interest.