Nonexample that pointwise convergence does not implies integrable

integrationmeasure-theoryreal-analysis

We have the well-known result that:

Given a finite measurable set $E$ and a sequence of uniformly integrable functions $f_n$ over $E$, if $f_n \to f$ pointwise a.e., then $f$ is integrable over $E$.

The idea is: using the finite partition to control the integral since uniformly.

My question is why uniformly integrable is necessary here, is there example that non uniform it may fails?

Best Answer

The given example $f_n = 1_{[1,\frac 1n]} f$ , $f = \frac 1x$ on $(0,1]$ serves as a counterexample.

The reason is that if the $f_n$ are uniformly integrable, then their integrals don't blow up , because you can split your domain into two parts by cutting off $f_n$, one which is controlled by uniform integrability (a "large $f_n$" part) and the other where you control the integral of the $f_n$ because $f_n$ is "small" there. Pushing such an inequality(which holds for all $n$ because of u.i) to the limit $n \to \infty$ gives that any pointwise limit would be integrable. Without uniform integrability, you would not be able to write the inequality at all.

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