Defining functions for unbounded \(C^m\) domains (Q2436065)

For an open set \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n\) a real-valued \(C^m\) function \(\rho\) defined on a neighborhood \(U\) of \(\partial \Omega\) such that \(\{x\in U\mid\rho(x)<0\}=\Omega \bigcap U\) and \(\nabla \rho \neq 0\) on \(\partial \Omega\) is called \(C^m\) defining function (\(m\geq 1\)), \(\Omega\) is a \(C^m\) domain if it has a \(C^m\) defining function. If \(\rho\) is a \(C^m\) defining function for \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n\) defined on a neighborhood \(U\) of \(\partial \Omega\) and such that 1) dist\((\partial \Omega, \partial U)>0\), 2) \(\|\rho\|_{C^m(U)}<\infty\), 3) \(\inf _U|\nabla \rho|>0 \), then \(\rho\) is \(C^m\) uniformly. A \(C^m\) uniformly function for all \(m\in \mathbb{N}\) is a \(C^{\infty}\) uniformly function. The following notions are introduced: For \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n\) with \(C^m\) boundary \[ \widetilde{\delta}(x)=\begin{cases} d(x,\partial \Omega), \;\;x \overline{\in} \Omega\,,\\ -d(x,\partial \Omega), \;\;x \in \overline{\Omega}\,, \end{cases} \] \(\mathrm{Unp}(\partial \Omega)=\{x\in \mathbb{R}^n\mid \text{there is a unique point}\; y\in \partial \Omega, \text{such that}\; \delta(x)=|y-x| \}\). For \(y\in \partial \Omega\), \(\mathrm{Reach}(\partial \Omega,y)=\sup\{r\geq 0\mid B(y,r)\subset \mathrm{Unp}(\partial \Omega)\}\). Reach\((\partial \Omega)=\inf\{\text{Reach}(\partial \Omega,y)\mid y\in \partial \Omega\}\). The main result of the article is presented in the following {Theorem. } Let \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n\) be a \(C^m\) domain, \(m>2\). Then the following assertions are equivalent:{\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[{\(1^0\).}] \(\Omega\) has a uniformly \(C^m\) defining function. \item[{\(2^0\).}] \(\partial \Omega\) has positive reach, and for any \(0<\varepsilon<\text{Reach}(\partial \Omega) \) the signed distance function satisfies \(\|\widetilde{\delta}\|_{C^m(U_{\varepsilon})}<\infty\) on \(U_{\varepsilon}=\{x\in \mathbb{R}^n\mid\delta(x)<\varepsilon\}\). \item[{\(3^0\).}] There exists a \(C^m\) defining function \(\rho\) for \(\Omega\) and a constant \(C>0\) such that for every point \(p \in \partial \Omega\) with local coordinates \(\{y_1,\ldots,y_n\}\) satisfying \( \frac{\partial \rho}{\partial y_j(p)}=0\) for \(1\leq j\leq n-1\) \[ |\nabla \rho(p)|^{-1}|\frac{\partial^k \rho(p)}{\partial y^I}|<C \] where \(I\) is a multi-index of length \(k\), \(2\leq k\leq m\), and \(0\leq I_n\leq \min\{m-k,k\}\). \end{itemize}}