Whitney extension operators without loss of derivatives (Q726761)

Summary: For a compact set \(K\subseteq \mathbb R^d\) we characterize the existence of a linear extension operator \(E: \mathcal E(K) \to \mathcal C^\infty(\mathbb R^d)\) for the space of Whitney jets \(\mathcal E(K)\) without loss of derivatives, that is, it satisfies the best possible continuity estimates \[ \sup\{|\partial^{\alpha} E(f)(x)|: |\alpha |\leq n, x \in \mathbb R^d\} \leq C_n \|f\|_{n}, \] where \(\|\cdot\|_n\) denotes the \(n\)-th Whitney norm. The characterization is by a surprisingly simple purely geometric condition introduced by \textit{A. Jonsson} et al. [Stud. Math. 80, 141--166 (1984; Zbl 0513.42020)]: there is \(\varrho \in (0,1)\) such that, for every \(x_0\in K\) and \(\varepsilon \in (0,1)\), there are \(d\) points \(x_1\dots{},x_d\) in \(K\cap B(x_0,\varepsilon)\) satisfying \(\mathrm {dist}(x_{n+1}, \text{affine hull}\{x_0,\dots{},x_n\}) \geq \varrho \varepsilon\) for all \(n\in\{0,\dots{},d-1\}\).