Extremal Polynomials and Sets of Minimal Capacity
This article examines the asymptotic behavior of the Widom factors, denoted Wn, for Chebyshev polynomials of finite unions of Jordan arcs. We prove that, in contrast to Widom’s proposal in Widom (Adv Math 3:127–232, 1969), when dealing with a single smooth Jordan arc, Wn converges to 2 exclusively when the arc is a straight line segment. Our main focus is on analysing polynomial preimages of the i