Thursday 11 April 2013

analysis - Smart tricks used to prove formulas by approximation

I've recently seen a proof of the inversion formula for the Fourier transform for $f,\hat{f}\in L^1(\mathbb{R}^d)$.
The main idea of the proof is this




We have
$$\int_{\mathbb{R}^d}e^{2\pi i x\cdot \xi}\hat f(\xi)d\xi=\int_{\mathbb{R}^d}e^{2\pi i x\cdot \xi}\left(\int_{\mathbb{R}^d}e^{-2 \pi i y\cdot \xi}dy\right)d\xi.$$ But at this point Fubini doesn't apply thus we can't change the two integrals.
Nevertheless, here is the trick (which I find really smart) for $t>0$ we consider this modified version of the integral
$$I_t(x):=\int_{\mathbb{R}^d}\hat f(\xi)e^{-\pi t^2\vert\xi\vert^2}e^{2\pi i x\cdot\xi}d\xi.$$

Now we can use Fubini and compute the integral in two ways and for $t\rightarrow0$ we get the result. By the way everything works because the damping factor is an eigenvector of the Fourier transform of eigenvalue 1 (so it is far from being a random choice).




I was astonished by the proof, we considered an apparently more complicated expression which allowed us to use a particular property and then passed to the limit and obtained the result.
My question is: what are other examples of the same idea?
I know that basically anything which involves approximation with smooth functions falls in this class but I'm asking for some particular example/application (of this or a similar idea) that made you think 'cool'.
(details are welcome).

No comments:

Post a Comment

real analysis - How to find $lim_{hrightarrow 0}frac{sin(ha)}{h}$

How to find $\lim_{h\rightarrow 0}\frac{\sin(ha)}{h}$ without lhopital rule? I know when I use lhopital I easy get $$ \lim_{h\rightarrow 0}...