1. Introduction
This paper is devoted to determine a new operator, which we call a semi-exponential operator. The idea comes mainly from papers [
1,
2], which concern exponential-type operators and semi-exponential operators. In general, the exponential-type operators, introduced in [
1], are considered an interesting subject for many authors. The authors examine approximation properties of these operators for functions from different function spaces. In literature we can also find many modifications of these operators which are focused on examining the rate of convergence of these modifications compared to initial exponential-type operators (for example [
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8]). In particular, the truncated version of exponential-type operators and its modifications are also investigated (for example [
9,
10,
11,
12]). As it turns out the truncated operators shall be applied to Computer Aided Geometric Design. Moreover, the exponential-type operators can be seen in papers connected with differential equations, also considered in abstract spaces, for example in papers [
2,
3,
13,
14].
At the beginning of this paper we recall some basic definitions and expressions, which we are going to use in the main part of the paper. Later on, we specify the well-known exponential operators and operators from paper [
2] which we call semi-exponential operators. We bring up the main differences between them. Following papers [
1,
2] we derive a new example of the semi-exponential operator. At the end of this paper we interpret the operator from the probabilistic point of view, similarly to paper [
3].
  2. Preliminaries
Let  and let us denote the space of all real-valued continuous functions on  by , and the Banach space of all continuous, bounded functions on  endowed with the sup-norm  by .
We shall also consider the following closed subspaces of 
:
      where 
 and
      
      where 
. For any positive integer 
q
      is the exponential weight function. The space
      
      is a Banach space with the norm
      
      and
      
      is a closed subspace of 
. Moreover, for every 
 we have
      
      and
      
We shall denote by .
  3. Exponential and Semi-Exponential Operators
In [
1] Ismail and May proposed some generalizations of integral operators as follows
      
      with the normalization condition
      
      where 
—the kernel of 
 is a positive function satisfying the following homogenous partial differential equation
      
      for 
, 
p an analytic and positive function on 
.
The meaning of the generalization we can detect by investigating papers concerning approximation process for the well-known operators
the Gauss–Weierstrass operator for 
the Szász–Mirakjan operator for 
the Bernstein polynomial operator for 
the Baskakov operator for 
the Post–Widder operator for 
the Ismail–May operators for 
and for 
These examples are exponential-type operators, which means they fulfill the differential Equation (
3) and the normalization condition (2). Moreover, the authors prove that the two conditions and the generating function 
p determine uniquely the approximation operator 
. Let us recall some particular properties of the exponential operators which are important from the standpoint of this paper.
Lemma 1 (Proposition 2.1 [
1]). 
Let  be an exponential operator. Then for  we have- (a)
 ,
- (b)
 ,
- (c)
 ,
where  for .
 We immediately conclude that operators  must preserve linear functions.
In [
2] Tyliba and Wachnicki studied a very similar problem we have just mentioned. They investigated a differential equation with minor changes of the right hand-side of (3), which means
      
      for 
 and with the same normalization condition
      
      and with the previous requirements relating to 
, 
 and 
.
From now on we shall call the operators
      
      a semi-exponential operators with the kernel 
.
The authors prove lemmas and theorems using similar methods as in [
1]. In the paper it is proved that 
 are approximation operators for functions 
, there are also stated some estimates with the same rate of convergence as in [
1]. As we can see the minor changes in the Equation (
3) are the reason why the operators are not retaining linear functions. In this case we have following
Lemma 2 (Lemma 2.1 [
2]). 
Let  be a semi-exponential operator. Then for  we have- (a)
 ,
- (b)
 ,
- (c)
 ,
where  for .
 Theorem 1 ([
1,
2] respectively). 
Let . If  and  exists, then- (a)
 ref. [1] , - (b)
 ref. [2] . 
If , then the above convergence is uniform in any interior interval .
 In general the exact formula for the exponential and semi-exponential operators is not too obvious. In the case of exponential-type operators we can see the examples at the beginning of this section. In paper [
2] the authors give two examples of semi-exponential operators. For 
 we have the semi-exponential Gauss–Weierstrass operator
      
      and for 
 we have the semi-exponential Szász–Mirakjan operator
      
The purpose of this paper is to find more examples of semi-exponential operators and to look at them from the probabilistic point of view.
  4. A New Example of the Semi-Exponential Operator
In this section we shall derive a new example of the semi-exponential operator. The crucial tool for motivation of our thesis is based on Theorem 3.10 of [
2] and its proof. We shall recall the theorem
Theorem 2. The kernel  of the semi-exponential operator  can be obtained by the partial differential Equation (4) and the normalization condition (5).  Let 
—the kernel of the semi-exponential opererator 
 satisfy (4) and (5) and 
 for 
. Notice that the solution of the differential Equation (
4) shall be given in the following form
      
      for some 
. We define an auxiliary function 
 as follows
      
      and we calculate the partial derivative of the function 
 with respect to 
tNow applying the Equation (
4) we have
      
      hence the function 
 depends only on 
 and 
u.
The normalization condition (5) yields
      
      which is equivalent for 
 to the following connection
      
Substituting 
, 
, 
 to the relation above, we get
      
The left-hand side of the equation above can also be expressed using the Laplace transform. It means
      
      for 
 and 
, where 
 is the modified Bessel function of the first kind. When we compare (7) and (8) we immediately have the expression for 
Now we are able to write the explicit formula for the kernel of the operator 
 as well as the formula of the operator itself. Using the connections (6) and (9) we obtain
      
By the definition of the operator 
 we have
      
Using the substitution 
 we can get an equivalent formula to the statement above,
      
  5. A Probabilistic Approach to the Semi-Exponential Operators
This section is devoted to demonstrate how we can interpret the semi-exponential operators in the probabilistic view. In the paper [
3] Altomare and Raşa investigate the case of exponential-type operators. The authors consider the operators for functions from the following polynomial weighted spaces
      
      and
      
      where 
 and
      
      for 
 is a polynomial weight function. It is easy to observe that 
 for every 
.
Assume that 
p is an analytic function on 
 and fulfilling the following condition
      
Furthermore we shall assume that there exists a family 
 of probability Borel measures on 
 such that
      
      and the differential equation
      
      is fulfilled for 
, 
, 
 and 
 a non-negative real number, as it was assumed in (4). We consider the Equation (
13) in the sense of the theory of generalized functions [
15]. If the assumption (12) is fulfilled, then we can define a sequence of positive linear operators on 
 by the following formula
      
It was shown in [
2] that if we take 
 for 
, then we have the modified exponential operator of Szász–Mirakjan type
      
In this case
      
      where 
 denotes the unit mass concentrated at 
.
An interesting example is the operator which we have just introduced in the previous section. We take 
 for 
 and we have a semi-exponential operator defined by (10), it means that
      
Now the measure 
 is defined by
      
      where 
 is the Lebesgue measure on 
 and
      
 stands for the modified Bessel function of the first kind. By Definition (14) we have the following
Remark 1. If  then  and  Moreover, if we take the auxiliary function 
 for 
 then the differential Equation (
13) and the definition (14) yields
      
      for 
, where 
. Using the connection above we can achieve the relations of Lemma 2 again, for example 
      and additionally
      
Notice that the semi-exponential operators  are well-defined and continuous on the exponential weight spaces . Moreover,  where  is a constant depending only on q.
Lemma 3. Let  be a semi-exponential operator,  and for all   as  thenfor every .  Proof.  Let 
 be a semi-exponential operator. We use induction on 
 to prove the lemma. By using (15) for 
 and 
 we have our statement. Now let us suppose that (16) is true for some 
. By using (15) we calculate
        
By the induction assumption we derive
        
        where
        
        and 
 as 
. This ends the proof of Lemma 3.    □
 Now we can claim
Theorem 3. Let  be a semi-exponential operator and for every  as  and  then
- (i)
  and  for every .
- (ii)
 Each  is continuous from  into itself and .
 Proof.  Let 
, 
 and 
 be fixed. By definition of 
 for any 
 we have
        
By linearity and positivity of 
 and the definition of the norm in 
 we can write
        
Hence
        
        for some constant 
 because 
 as 
. If we use d’Alembert’s ratio test we get the convergence of the series and we can write
        
According to the estimation above we conclude that operators  are continuous from  into itself and .
To prove the last statement in Theorem 3 we take a function 
 and 
. From the definition of the space 
 we have
        
        for 
. Let 
. There exists 
 such that
        
        for 
. Now we are prepared to write the following estimation for 
By the normalization condition and the previous estimation for 
 we get
        
        which proves our assertion in the case 
.    □
 Remark 2. If we try to use the theorem for the semi-exponential Post–Widder operator it will fail. It is easy to see that in this case the function  and it does not fulfill the crucial assumption  as . On the other hand we recall the semi-exponential Szász–Mirakjan operator for  and in this case the assumption is fulfilled.