Chebyshev Circles Blueprint

6.1 Chebyshev roots and their power sums

To prove that \(S_N(x; \theta ) = T_N(x) + c(\theta )\), we must show that the roots \(r_k(\theta )\) and the Chebyshev roots \(\xi _k\) have matching power sums. We already know the rotated roots have \(\theta \)-independent power sums. Now we compute the power sums of the Chebyshev roots explicitly.

Lemma 6.1.1

The roots of the Chebyshev polynomial \(T_N(x)\) are

\begin{equation} \xi _k = \cos \left(\frac{(2k + 1)\pi }{2N}\right), \quad k = 0, 1, \ldots , N-1. \end{equation}
1

These are \(N\) distinct real numbers in the interval \((-1, 1)\).

Proof

By the defining relation \(T_N(\cos \theta ) = \cos (N\theta )\), we have \(T_N(\xi _k) = 0\) if and only if \(N\theta _k = (2k + 1)\pi /2\) for some integer \(k\), i.e., \(\theta _k = (2k + 1)\pi /(2N)\). Since \(\theta _k \in (0, \pi )\) for \(k \in \{ 0, \ldots , N-1\} \), the values \(\xi _k = \cos \theta _k\) are distinct and lie in \((-1, 1)\).