The H\"ormander--Bernhardsson extremal function: A preliminary study

Abstract

We study the function $\varphi_1$ of minimal $L^1$ norm among all functions $f$ of exponential type at most $\pi$ for which $f(0)=1$. This function, first studied by H\"{o}rmander and Bernhardsson in 1993, has only real zeros $\pm \tau_n$, $n=1,2, \ldots$, and the sequence $(\tau_n-n-\frac12)$ has $\ell^2$ norm bounded by $0.13$. The zeros $\tau_n$ can be computed by means of a fixed point iteration.