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There are quite a few simple results about convergent/divergent series derived from similar ones. So, here is something that I came across recently:

Let n=1an consist of positive terms and be convergent. Define bn=1na2n. Is the series n=1nnj=1bj also convergent?

Some elementary manipulations on the terms of the derived series can bound its growth to O(log(n)), but that's as far as I can get. Curious to know if the validity of this.

If this is too obvious or not appropriate for this forum, I will delete the question.

Ivan
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1 Answers1

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The answer is yes. Indeed, for integers j0, let Nj:={2j,,2j+11},Aj:=2jkNjak, so that Aj is the arithmetic mean of the an's over nNj. Then A:=j=02jAj=n1an< and for j1 and nNj sn:=nk=1bkkNj1bk1221jkNj1a2k12(21jkNj1ak)2=A2j1/2; the latter inequality here is an instance of Jensen's inequality for the convex function 0<xx2.

Remark: Considering the equality case in this latter inequality suggests that the least favorable case is when the an's with nNj differ insignificantly from one another (see the explanation "by (2)" in the multi-line display below) -- but then the an's are relatively easy to deal with. Also, the factor 1n in the definition bn:=1na2n of bn varies insignificantly when nNj -- which was a reason to partition the set of all natural numbers into the blocks Nj.

Now we can write
n2nsn=j1nNjnsnj12j2j+1A2j1/2(by (2))=j122j+2A2j1j122j+22(j1)AAj1(by (1))=16Aj12j1Aj1=16A2, so that the sum of the series in question is 1s1+n2nsn1s1+16A2=a21+16A2<.

Iosif Pinelis
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