On the best convergence rates of lightning plus polynomial approximations

Abstract: Building on introducing exponentially clustered poles, Trefethen and his collaborators introduced lightning algorithms for approximating functions of singularities. These schemes may achieve root-exponential convergence rates. In particular, based on a specific choice of the parameter of the tapered exponentially clustered poles, the lightning approximation with either a low-degree polynomial basis may achieve the optimal convergence rate simply as the best rational approximation for prototype $x^\alpha$ on $[0,1]$, which was illustrated through delicate numerical experiments and conjectured in [SIAM J. Numer. Anal., 61:2580-2600, 2023]. By utilizing Poisson's summation formula and results akin to Paley-Wiener Theorem, we rigorously show that all these schemes with a low-degree polynomial basis achieve root-exponential convergence rates with exact orders in approximating $x^\alpha$ for arbitrary clustered parameters theoretically, and provide the best choices of the parameter to achieve the fastest convergence rate for each type of clustered poles, from which the conjecture is confirmed as a special case. Ample numerical evidences demonstrate the optimality and sharpness of the estimates.