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Relative Whitney approximation for Euclidean-valued maps
Statement
Assume countable choice . Let be continuous, let be closed, and suppose is smooth on an open neighbourhood of . For every positive continuous error function on , there exists a smooth map such that:
- on some open neighbourhood of , and
- for all .
No compactness of or of a neighbourhood of is assumed.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: Countable choice, a continuous map , a closed set , an open neighbourhood of on which is smooth, and a positive continuous error function .
Countable choice is assumed for the two existence results below; their countable coordinate, annular-cover and bump selections are explicitly licensed (The Axiom of Countable Choice ()).
Under [A1], Euclidean Whitney approximation gives a smooth with pointwise (Whitney approximation for Euclidean-valued maps).
Under [A1], there is a smooth equal to one on an open neighbourhood of and with (A smooth Urysohn lemma for a closed set in an open set).
A continuous map that is smooth on an open cover is smooth globally (Smoothness is local on the source).
Finite sums and products of smooth scalar functions, and hence componentwise scalar-vector products, are smooth by iterated coordinate derivative rules (Sums, scalar multiples, products and quotients: , , , and when , maps and multi-index derivative notation in Euclidean space).
Proof
Use [L1] to obtain and [L2] to obtain . Let be an open neighbourhood of on which . Define on all of This is a continuous Euclidean-valued map, since are continuous and the formula uses finite scalar sums and products. These are two applications of the explicitly assumed countable-choice existence results, not a compact-neighbourhood selection.
On , the formula for is smooth by [L4], since , and are smooth. On the open set it equals , hence is smooth. These two open sets cover because . Therefore [L3] proves that is globally smooth; no differentiability of outside is used.
On , and hence . At every , The weak inequality before the final strict inequality includes the case . Thus both claims hold. The same construction includes empty (its neighbourhood can be empty), empty , and noncompact closed .