Nonsmooth manifold decompositions

Abstract

We study the structure induced on a smooth manifold by a continuous selection of smooth functions. In case such selection is suitably generic, it provides a stratification of the manifold, whose strata are algebraically defined smooth submanifolds. When the continuous selection has nondegenerate critical points, stratification descends to the local topological structure. We analyze this structure for the maximum of three smooth functions on a 4-manifold, which provides a new perspective on the theory of trisections.