Properties of the class of improvable functions (Q1374517)

For \(D\subset \mathbb{R}\) and a bounded function \(f\: D\to \mathbb{R}\), put \[ \begin{aligned} U(f)&=\big \{ x\in D:\;\lim_{t\to x}f(t) \not =f(x)\big \},\\ C(f)&=\big \{ x\in D:\;\lim_{t\to x}f(t) =f(x)\big \}.\\ \end{aligned} \] Let \(f_{(0)}=f\) and, for an ordinal number \(\alpha \), \(f_{(\alpha +1)}(x)=f_{(\alpha)}(x)\) if \(x\notin U\big (f_{(\alpha)}(x)\big)\) and \(f_{(\alpha +1)}(x)=\lim_{t\to x}f_{(\alpha)}(x)\) otherwise. Moreover, let \(\mathcal A_{\alpha} =\big \{ f\: D\to \mathbb{R}:\^^MC(f_{(\alpha)})=D\big \}\), \(\mathcal A=\bigcup_{0\leq \alpha <\omega_1}\mathcal A_{\alpha}\). A function \(f\in \mathcal A\) is called an improvable function. The author proves that any improvable function \(f\:\mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}\) is a Baire function of type 1 (i.e., \(f\in B_1\)) and that \(\mathcal A\) is nowhere dense in \(B_1\). Furthermore, let \(B_1^*\) be the family of all \(f\: \mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}\) such that for any perfect set \(P\) there exists an interval \((a,b)\) for which the restriction \(f_{\big |(a,b)\cap P}\) is continuous. It is shown that: (i) \(\mathcal A\) is not contained in \(B^*_1\); (ii) no Darboux discontinuous function is improvable.