Find the values of $p$ for which this sequence of functions uniformly converges.

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Show that $f_n\colon \mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}$ be defined by

$$f_n(x) = \frac{nx}{1+n^2x^p}.$$

For $p>0$, Find the values of $p$ for which the sequence $f_n$ converges uniformly to the limit.

My attempt: What's clear is that the sequence converges pointwise to the function $f(x)=0$. With trial and error, I noticed that the power of $x$ should be less than the power of $n$ which is $2$. Therefore $p$ should be $1$. Am I thinking properly? And how to show this?

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We assume that $x\ge 0$, else $x^p$ is in general undefined for $x<0$.

The pointwise limit as $n\to \infty$ is zero. We will analyze four cases to determine for which values of $p$ this convergence is uniform.

We will see that the "problems" arise for "large" $x$ when $0<p<1$ and for "small" $x$ when $p>2$.


CASE $1$: $\displaystyle 0<p<1$

Suppose that $0<p<1$. Take $\epsilon=\frac12$. Then, for all $N\ge 1$ we take $x=n^{2/(1-p)}$ and any $n>N$ and find

$$\left|\frac{nx}{1+n^2x^p}\right|\ge \frac12 =\epsilon$$

This negates uniform convergence for $0<p<1$ and $x\in [0,\infty)$.


CASE $2$: $\displaystyle 2 \ge p$

Suppose that $p\ge 2$. Take $\epsilon=1/2$. Then for all $N\ge 1$, we take $x=n^{-2/p}$ and any $n>N$ such that

$$\left|\frac{nx}{1+n^2x^p}\right|=\frac12 n^{1-2/p}\ge \frac12$$

And the convergence fails to be uniform for $x\in [0,\infty)$.


CASE $3$: $\displaystyle p=1$

Note the for $p=1$ we have

$$\left|\frac{nx}{1+n^2x^p}\right|\le \frac1n$$

And the convergence is uniform.


CASE $4$: $\displaystyle 1 < p<2$

For $1<p<2$, we find that $f_n'(x)=0$ at $x=\left((p-1)n^2\right)^{-1/p}$. At that value of $x$, $f_n(x)=\frac{(p-1)^{1-1/p}}{p}n^{1-2/p}\to 0$. And convergence in the sup norm implies uniform convergence.


PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:

The sequence $f_n(x)=\frac{nx}{1+n^2x^p}$ converges uniformly to $0$ for $x\in [0,\infty)$ when $1\le p<2$. The convergence fails to be uniform for $p<1$ and fails to be uniform for $p\ge 2$.