Rings of differentiable semialgebraic functions (Q6593977)

Let \(M \subset \mathbb{R}^m\) be a semialgebraic set. It is commonly denoted by \(\mathcal{S}(M)\) the set of continuous functions \(M \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) whose graph is a semialgebraic subset of \(\mathbb{R}^{m+1}\). This set \(\mathcal{S}(M)\) is endowed with a natural structure of \(\mathbb{R}\)-algebra with the operations defined pointwise. The last two authors have published in the last twelve years a long series of articles devoted to the study of \(\mathcal{S}(M)\). For their purposes in the paper under review, the following ones are particularly important: [J. Algebra 399, 475--488 (2014; Zbl 1314.14106); Rev. Mat. Iberoam. 31, 753--766 (2015; Zbl 1362.14059)].\N\NIn this article, the authors study differentiable semialgebraic functions on \(M\). Whereas the notion of continuity has an evident intrinsic character, this is not so obvious in the differentiable context. A naif but unsatisfactory definition could be the following: a semialgebraic function \(f : M \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) is differentiable of class \(\mathcal{C}^r\) if there exist an open semialgebraic subset \(U \subset \mathbb{R}^m\) containing \(M\), and a semialgebraic function \(F \in \mathcal{C}^r(U)\) such that \(F|_M = f\). This notion is not the right one even if dealing with continuous functions. The authors call \(\mathcal{S}^0(M)\) the \(\mathbb{R}\)-algebra of those functions \(M \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) that are restrictions to \(M\) of continuous semialgebraic functions defined on open semialgebraic neighbourhoods of \(M\), and the equality \(\mathcal{S}(M) = \mathcal{S}^0(M)\) just holds if \(M\) is locally compact.\N\NThus, an initial problem when dealing with differentiable semialgebraic functions of class \(\mathcal{C}^r\) on a semialgebraic set \(M \subset \mathbb{R}^m\) is to find an intrinsic definition of such type of functions, that the authors call \(\mathcal{S}^r\)-functions on \(M\). The answer is provided by the definition proposed in the o-minimal context by \textit{M. Aschenbrenner} and \textit{A. Thamrongthanyalak} in [Rev. Mat. Iberoam. 35, No. 4, 1027--1052 (2019; Zbl 1445.03043)], which involves jets of order \(r\) of continuous semialgebraic functions. The authors denote by \(\mathcal{S}^r(M)\) the set of all semialgebraic \(\mathcal{C}^r\)-functions on \(M\), which admits a natural structure of \(\mathbb{R}\)-algebra with the operations defined pointwise. A key property of this algebra is that given \(f \in \mathcal{S}^r(M)\), there exist an open semialgebraic subset \(U \subset \mathbb{R}^m\) containing \(M\), and \(F \in \mathcal{S}^{r-1}(U)\) such that \(F|_M = f\). In particular, for \(r \geq 1\),\N\[\N\mathcal{S}^r(M) \hookrightarrow \mathcal{S}^0(M) \subset \mathcal{S}(M),\N\]\Nand the authors use along the paper three crucial facts. First, the existence of a Nullstellensatz and a Łojasiewicz's inequality in the ring \(\mathcal{S}(M)\), together with the good behaviour of Krull dimension in these rings, second the fact that \(\mathcal{S}^0(M)\) is the real closure, in the sense of \textit{N. Schwartz} in [Holland, W. Charles (ed.) et al., Ordered algebraic structures. Proceedings of the Curaçao conference, Netherlands Antilles, June 26-30, 1995. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 277--313 (1997; Zbl 0885.46024)], of \(\mathcal{S}^r(M)\), and third the fact that the rings \(\mathcal{S}^0(M)\) and \(\mathcal{S}^r(M)\) have homeomorphic prime and maximal spectra endowed with the Zariski topology.\N\NAmong the results in this article, these are in detail some of the most relevant ones. The authors state them for \(\mathcal{S}^r\)-functions, although most of them are also true for bounded \(\mathcal{S}^r\)-functions. Denote \(\mathrm{Spec}(R)\) the set of prime ideals of a commutative ring with unity \(R\), endowed with the Zariski topology.\smallskip\N\N{Theorem 1.2} Let \(M \subset \mathbb{R}^m\) be a semialgebraic set. Then the map\N\[\N{\mathrm{Spec}}(\mathcal{S}^0(M)) \rightarrow {\mathrm{Spec}}(\mathcal{S}^r(M)),\ {\mathfrak{p}} \mapsto {\mathfrak{p}} \cap \mathcal{S}^{r}(M) \N\]\Nis a homeomorphism and its inverse map is\N\[\N{\mathrm{Spec}}(\mathcal{S}^r(M)) \rightarrow {\mathrm{Spec}}(\mathcal{S}^0(M)),\ {\mathfrak{q}} \mapsto \sqrt{{\mathfrak{q}} \mathcal{S}^{0}(M)}. \N\]\NThis result implies that \(\mathcal{S}^r(M)\) is a Gelfand ring, i.e., every prime ideal is contained in a unique maximal ideal. In addition, its Krull dimension coincides with the dimension of \(M\). Denote by \(\beta^{r}(M)\) the maximal spectrum of \(\mathcal{S}^{r}(M)\). As homeomorphisms between topological spaces preserve closed points, the restriction\N\[\N\beta^{0}(M) \rightarrow \beta^{r}(M),\ {\mathfrak{m}} \mapsto {\mathfrak{m}} \cap \mathcal{S}^{r}(M)\N\]\Nis also a homeomorphism. \N\N{Theorem 1.4} Let \({\mathfrak{p}}\) be a prime ideal of \(\mathcal{S}^{0}(M)\) and consider the inclusion\N\[\N\mathtt{j} : \mathcal{S}^{r}(M)/({\mathfrak{p}} \cap \mathcal{S}^{r}(M)) \rightarrow \mathcal{S}^{0}(M)/{\mathfrak{p}}. \N\]\NThen, \(\mathtt{j}\) induces an isomorphism between the fields of fractions \(\kappa({\mathfrak{p}} \cap \mathcal{S}^{r}(M))\) and \(\kappa({\mathfrak{p}})\) of the integral domains \(\mathcal{S}^{r}(M)/({\mathfrak{p}} \cap \mathcal{S}^{r}(M))\) and \(\mathcal{S}^{0}(M)/{\mathfrak{p}}\). In particular, \(\kappa({\mathfrak{p}} \cap \mathcal{S}^{r}(M))\) is a real closed field.\N\NLet \(\Gamma(f) \subset \mathbb{R}^{m+1}\) be the graph of a function \(f : M \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) and \({\mathrm{Cl}}_{\mathbb{R}^{m+1}}(\Gamma(f))\) its closure in \(\mathbb{R}^{m+1}\). In addition, let \(\mathcal{Z}_M(f) : = \{x \in M: f(x) = 0\}\). A relevant result in the paper is the following one, which extends to the non-necessarily locally compact case, the classical Łojasiewicz's Nullstellensatz, which is Theorem 1.3 of the article.\N\N{Proposition 3.7} Łojasiewicz's Nullstellensatz). Let \(M \subset \mathbb{R}^m\) be a semialgebraic set and let \(f_1,f_2 \in \mathcal{S}^r(M)\). Consider the semialgebraic set\N\[\NS : =\{x \in \mathbb{R}^m: (x,0) \in {\mathrm{Cl}}_{\mathbb{R}^{m+1}}(\Gamma(f_1)) \setminus {\mathrm{Cl}}_{\mathbb{R}^{m+1}}(\Gamma(f_2))\}. \N\]\NThe following assertions are equivalent: (1) \(M \cap {\mathrm{Cl}} _{\mathbb{R}^{m}}(S) = \varnothing\). (2) There exist an open semialgebraic neighbourhood \(U\) of \(M\) in \({\mathrm{Cl}} _{\mathbb{R}^m}(M)\) and \(F_1,F_2 \in \mathcal{S}^0(U)\) such that \(F_i|_M = f_i\) for \(i = 1,2\) and \(\mathcal{Z}_{U}(F_1) \subset \mathcal{Z}_{U}(F_2)\). \noindent (3) There exist an open semialgebraic neighbourhood \(U\) of \(M\) in \({\mathrm{Cl}} _{\mathbb{R}^m}(M)\), an integer \(\ell \geq 1\) and \(G \in \mathcal{S}^0(U)\) such that \(g: = G|_M \in \mathcal{S}^r(M)\), \(\mathcal{Z}_{M}(f_2) = \mathcal{Z}_M(g)\) and \(f_2^\ell = f_1g\).