Definable smoothing of Lipschitz continuous functions (Q733335)

This paper is one of several (following [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 136, No. 7, 2583--2587 (2008; Zbl 1147.03020)], [Adv. Math. 218, No. 2, 496--514 (2008; Zbl 1147.03018)]) in which the author studies approximation problems for functions definable in o-minimal expansions of fields. Here, the author shows that if \(f:U\to R\) is a Lipschitz function definable in an o-minimal expansion of a real closed field \(R\) on an open definable set \(U\subseteq R^n\), and \(\varepsilon\) is a definable continuous positive function on \(U\), then given \(m>0\) there is a definable Lipschitz \(C^m\) function \(g:U\to R\) such that \(|g(x)-f(x)|< \varepsilon (x)\) for all \(x\in U\). The key lemma establishes the result under the further hypothesis that there is some lower-dimensional cell \(M\), defined using \(C^m\) functions with bounded first derivative, such that both \(f|_M\) and \(f|_{U\setminus M}\) are \(C^m\). The main result is then proved using a stratification result due to the author [Ann. Pure Appl. Logic 147, No. 1--2, 101--112 (2007; Zbl 1125.03029)].