Approximations in $$L^1$$ with convergent Fourier series

For a separable finite diffuse measure space $${\mathcal {M}}$$ M and an orthonormal basis $$\{\varphi _n\}$$ { φ n } of $$L^2({\mathcal {M}})$$ L 2 ( M ) consisting of bounded functions $$\varphi _n\in L^\infty ({\mathcal {M}})$$ φ n ∈ L ∞ ( M ) , we find a measurable subset $$E\subset {\mathcal {M}}$$ E ⊂ M of arbitrarily small complement $$|{\mathcal {M}}{\setminus } E|<\epsilon $$ | M \ E | < ϵ , such that every measurable function $$f\in L^1({\mathcal {M}})$$ f ∈ L 1 ( M ) has an approximant $$g\in L^1({\mathcal {M}})$$ g ∈ L 1 ( M ) with $$g=f$$ g = f on E and the Fourier series of g converges to g, and a few further properties. The subset E is universal in the sense that it does not depend on the function f to be approximated. Further in the paper this result is adapted to the case of $${\mathcal {M}}=G/H$$ M = G / H being a homogeneous space of an infinite compact second countable Hausdorff group. As a useful illustration the case of n-spheres with spherical harmonics is discussed. The construction of the subset E and approximant g is sketched briefly at the end of the paper.