Constrained Approximation in Banach Spaces

   Abstract. We consider the problem of approximating vectors from a complemented subspace Z ₊ of a Banach space X by the projections onto Z ₊ of vectors from a subspace Y ₊ with a norm constraint on their projections onto the complementary subspace. Sufficient conditions are found for the existence of a unique best approximant and a characterization via a critical point equation is provided, thus extending known results on Hilbert spaces. These results are then applied in the case that X is L ^p (T), where T denotes the unit circle, Z ₊ consists of functions supported on a subset of the circle, and Y ₊ is the corresponding Hardy space.