Nash approximation of differentiable semialgebraic maps

Abstract

Let $T\subset{\mathbb R}^n$ be a semialgebraic set and let $\mu\ge0$ be a non-negative integer. We say that $T$ is a {\em Nash $\mu$-approximation target space} (or a $({\mathcal N},\mu)$-${\tt ats}$ for short) if it has the following universal approximation property: {\em For each $m\in{\mathbb N}$ and each locally compact semialgebraic subset $S\subset{\mathbb R}^m$, the subspace of Nash maps ${\mathcal N}(S,T)$ is dense in the space ${\mathcal S}^\mu(S,T)$ of ${\mathcal C}^\mu$ semialgebraic maps between $S$ and $T$}. A necessary condition to be a $({\mathcal N},\mu)$-${\tt ats}$ is that $T$ is locally connected by analytic paths. In this paper we show: {\em Nash manifolds with corners are $({\mathcal N},\mu)$-${\tt ats}$ for each $\mu\geq0$}. As an application of a stronger version of the previous statement, we show that if two Nash maps $f,g:S\to Q$, where $S$ is a locally compact semialgebraic set of ${\mathbb R}^m$ and $Q$ is a Nash manifold with corners, are close enough in the (strong) Whitney's semialgebraic topology of ${\mathcal S}^0(S,T)$ (and consequently they are (continuous) semialgebraically homotopic), then $f,g$ are Nash homotopic.