An o-minimal structure which does not admit \(\mathcal C^{\infty}\) cellular decomposition (Q2476534)

O-minimal structures are a generalization of the category of semialgebraic sets and functions. As a consequence of the axioms of o-minimality, every set which is definable in an o-minimal structure expanding the field of real numbers, can be partitioned into finitely many \(C^{k}\) cells, where \(k \geq 0\) is arbitrary [see \textit{L. van den Dries}, Tame Topology and o-minimal structures. London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series. 248. (Cambridge): Cambridge University Press. (1998; Zbl 0953.03045)]. For a long time all known examples of o-minimal structures on the real field allowed actually analytic cell decomposition. Then the first author of the article under review together with \textit{P. Speissegger} and \textit{A. J. Wilkie} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 16, No. 4, 751--777 (2003; Zbl 1095.26018)] established an o-minimal structure on the real field which admits \(C^{\infty}\) but not \(C^{\omega}\) cell decomposition. In the present nice short article the authors show now the following Theorem. There is an o-minimal structure expanding the real field which does not admit \(C^{\infty}\) cell decomposition. This theorem shows once more that o-minimal structures, although inspired by semialgebraic geometry and sharing many nice toplogical and geometric properties with it, go far beyound the category of semialgebraic sets and functions. To obtain the theorem the authors construct a function \(H\) on the real line which is \(C^{\infty}\) on the real line but not on any neighbourhood of 0 and which is piecewise given on the complement of every neighbourhood of 0 by finitely many polynomials. Moreover, the function \(H\) has the following additional important property: the smallest algebras of functions which contain the polynomials and in dimension 1 the function \(H\) and which are (roughly spoken) closed under taking partial derivatives in 0, composition and implicit functions, are quasianalytic; i.e. the map given by applying the Taylor expansion in 0, is injective. The authors realize this property with a nice trick. They construct the function \(H\) in such a way that the sequence of coefficients of the Taylor expansion of \(H\) has arbitrary high transcendence degree. Finally, the methods of the above paper of Rolin, Speissegger and Wilkie are applied to show that the function \(H\) generates an o-minimal structure on the real field and the theorem is proven.