Selections of bounded variation for roots of smooth polynomials (Q2294070)

The authors answer positive the following question: Can the roots of a monic polynomial with coefficients in a differentiability class of sufficiently high order be represented by functions of bounded variation? The result is best possible in the sense that discontinuities of the roots are in general unavoidable due to monodromy. It is proved that the discontinuity set can be chosen to be a finite union of smooth hypersurfaces. In the case of radicals, uniform optimal bounds are offered.