Riemann-Lebesgue lemma
.Let be a measurable function. If is integrable, that is to say if the Lebesgue integral
of isfinite, then
The above result, commonly known as the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma, is ofbasic importance in harmonic analysis. It is equivalent to theassertion that the Fourier coefficients of a periodic, integrablefunction , tend to as .
The proof can be organized into 3 steps.
Step 1. An elementary calculation shows that
for every interval . The proposition is therefore truefor all step functions
with support (http://planetmath.org/SupportOfFunction) in .
Step 2.By the monotone convergence theorem, the proposition is true for allpositive functions, integrable on .
Step 3. Let be an arbitrary measurable function,integrable on . The proposition is true for such a general, because one can always write
where and are positive functions, integrable on.