Differentiable positive definite kernels and Lipschitz continuity

Abstract

AbstractReade[11] has shown that positive definite kernels K(x, t) which satisfy a Lipschitz condition of order α on a bounded region have eigenvalues which are asymptotically O(1/n1+α). In this paper we extend this result to positive definite kernels whose symmetric derivative Krr(x, t) = ∂2rK(x, t)/∂xτ ∂tτ is in Lipα and establish λn(K) = O(1/n2r+1+α). If ∂Krr/∂t is in Lipα, the anticipated asymptotic estimate is also derived.The proofs use a well-known result of Chang [2], recently rederived by Ha [5], and estimates based upon finite rank approximations to the kernels in question. In these latter estimates we employ the familiar piecewise linear ‘hat’ basis functions of approximation theory.