Construction of Optimal Algorithms for Function Approximation in Gaussian Sobolev Spaces

Abstract: This paper studies function approximation in Gaussian Sobolev spaces over the real line and measures the error in a Gaussian-weighted $L^p$-norm. We construct two linear approximation algorithms using $n$ function evaluations that achieve the optimal or almost optimal rate of worst-case convergence in a Gaussian Sobolev space of order $\alpha$. The first algorithm is based on scaled trigonometric interpolation and achieves the optimal rate $n^{-\alpha}$ up to a logarithmic factor. This algorithm can be constructed in almost-linear time with the fast Fourier transform. The second algorithm is more complicated, being based on spline smoothing, but attains the optimal rate $n^{-\alpha}$.