Multivariate Newton Interpolation in Downward Closed Spaces Reaches the Optimal Geometric Approximation Rates for Bos--Levenberg--Trefethen Functions

Abstract

We extend the univariate Newton interpolation algorithm to arbitrary spatial dimensions and for any choice of downward-closed polynomial space, while preserving its quadratic runtime and linear storage cost. The generalisation supports any choice of the provided notion of non-tensorial unisolvent interpolation nodes, whose number coincides with the dimension of the chosen-downward closed space. Specifically, we prove that by selecting Leja-ordered Chebyshev-Lobatto or Leja nodes, the optimal geometric approximation rates for a class of analytic functions -- termed Bos--Levenberg--Trefethen functions -- are achieved and extend to the derivatives of the interpolants. In particular, choosing Euclidean degree results in downward-closed spaces whose dimension only grows sub-exponentially with spatial dimension, while delivering approximation rates close to, or even matching those of the tensorial maximum-degree case, mitigating the curse of dimensionality. Several numerical experiments demonstrate the performance of the resulting multivariate Newton interpolation compared to state-of-the-art alternatives and validate our theoretical results.