Real Analysis HW 12 Solutions

Problem 23: Find an example of a Cauchy sequence of numbers that is not rapidly Cauchy.
Solution: Consider the {(−1)n /n}∞
n=1 . This is sequence converges to 0 and is therefore
Cauchy. However
 (−1)n (−1)n+1 
 
n+2 1
 n − n + 1  = n(n + 1) ≥ n
 

and is therefore not rapidly Cauchy. 

Problem 28: Assume E has finite measure and 1 ≤ p < ∞. Suppose {fn } is a sequence of
measurable functions that converges pointwise a.e. on E to f . For 1 ≤ p < ∞, show that
{fn } → f in Lp (E) if there is a θ > 0 such that {fn } belongs to and is bounded as a subset
of Lp+θ (E).
Solution: Suppose that there exists a θ > 0 such that

kfn kLp+θ ≤ C

uniformly in n, then kf kLp+θ ≤ C by Fatou’s Lemma. We see by an application of Hölder’s

inequality that
Z Z
p θ/(p+θ)
|f − fn | ≤ m(E) |f − fn |p+θ ≤ 2C p+θ m(E)θ/(p+θ) .
E E

This clearly implies that {|f − fn |p } is uniformly integrable and so by Vitali convergence
{fn } → f in Lp (E). 
Problem 36: Let S be a subset of a normed linear space X. Show that S is dense in X if
and only if each g ∈ X is the limit of a sequence in S.
Solution: Suppose S is dense and g ∈ X, then by definition of density for each n ≥ 1 we
may find a sn ∈ S so that
kg − sn k < 1/n.
It follows that {sn } → g in X.
For the converse suppose let g ∈ X and choose a sequence {sn } ⊆ S conveging to g. Clearly
for any  > 0 we may choose n0 large enough so that

kg − sn0 k < 

1
and so S is dense. 
Extra Problem: Let a < b and  > 0. Consider the function
1
f (x) = (x−a)(x−b)
e  +1
(i) Show that as  → 0, f (x) → 1 if a < x < b, and f (x) → 0 for x outside [a, b]. Thus

lim f (x) = χ[a,b] (x) for almost all x ∈ R.

→0

(ii) For 1 ≤ p < ∞, prove that

lim kf (x) − χ[a,b] kLP (R) = 0.

→0

Solution:

(ii) If a < x < b then (x − a)(x − b)/ → −∞ as  → 0 and therefore f (x) → 1. Also if x
is outside [a, b] then (x − a)(x − b)/ → +∞ as  → 0 and so f (x) → 0. Therefore

lim f (x) = χ[a,b] (x) for all x 6= a, b.

→0

(ii) Note that for  < 1,

|f (x) − χ[a,b] (x)| ≤ e−(x−a)(x−b)
and since e−(x−a)(x−b) decays faster than any inverse power of x as x → ±∞ it is in
Lp (R) for 1 ≤ p < ∞. Therefore by Dominated Convergence

lim kf (x) − χ[a,b] (x)kLp (R) = 0.

→0