Singular sets of surfaces (Q1678783)

The article deals with sets of values for the metric projection on approximatively compact subsets in a Banach space and some properties of singular sets for hypersurfaces in \({\mathbb R}^n\). Let \(M\) be a subset of a Banach space \(X\) and \[ P_Mx := \{y \in M|\;\|x - y\|= \rho(x,M)\} \] the operator of metric projection. A point \(x \in M\) is called a point of approximative compactness if, for every sequence \(\{y_n\} \subset M\) such that \(\|x - y_n\| \to \rho(x,M)\), there is a subsequence \(\{y_{n_k}\}\) which converges to some point \(y_0 \in M\). The set \(M\) is approximatively compact if every of its points is approximatively compact. The following theorem is proved: if \(M\) is an approximately compact subset in a Hilbert space \(X\), \(x_0 \in X \setminus M\) and \(A = P_Mx_0\) is not a singleton, then, for every \(\varepsilon > 0\), there is a point \(x \in X:\;\|x - x_0\| <\varepsilon\) such that the set \(P_Mx\) is a Euclidean sphere of dimension \(k - 1\). Further, the case \(X = {\mathbb R}^n\), \(n \geq 3\), is considered. A point \(x \in X \setminus \overline{\mathrm{int}\, M}\) is regular if there exists a neighborhood of \(x\) such that, for every point of the neighborhood, there is a nearest point of \(M\) and this point is unique; the points that are not regular form the singular set of \(M\). The main result is: if \(M\) is a hypersurface and \(E\) its singular set of dimension \(\geq 1\), then the hypersurface \(M\) is convex and its singular set lies on one side of \(M\) in the convex component \({\mathbb R}^n \setminus M\).