Vietoris' number sequence and its generalizations through hypercomplex function theory

The so-called Vietoris' number sequence is a sequence of rational numbers that appeared for the first time in a celebrated theorem by Vietoris (1958) about the positivity of certain trigonometric sums with important applications in harmonic analysis (Askey/Steinig, 1974) and in the theory of stable holomorphic functions (Ruscheweyh/ Salinas, 2004). In the context of hypercomplex function theory those numbers appear as coefficients of special homogeneous polynomials in R^3 whose generalization to an arbitrary dimension n lead to a n-parameter generalized Vietoris' number sequence that characterizes hypercomplex Appell polynomials in R^n.The work of the second author was supported by Portuguese funds through the CMAT - Centre of Mathematics and FCT within the Project UID/MAT/00013/2013. The work of the other authors was supported by Portuguese funds through the CIDMA - Center for Research and Development in Mathematics and Applications, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (“FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia”), within project PEst-OE/MAT/UI4106/2013