Nonlinear Approximation by Trigonometric Sums

Abstract

We investigate the $L_p$-error of approximation to a function $f\in L_p({\Bbb T}^d)$ by a linear combination $\sum_{k}c_ke_k$ of $n$ exponentials $e_k(x):= e^{i\langle k,x\rangle}=e^{i(k_1x_1+\cdots+k_dx_d)}$ on ${\Bbb T}^d,$ where the frequencies $k\in {\Bbb Z}^d$ are allowed to depend on $f.$ We bound this error in terms of the smoothness and other properties of $f$ and show that our bounds are best possible in the sense of approximation of certain classes of functions.