Functions

Abstract

. We prove that every continuous function on a separable infinite-dimensional Hilbert space X can be uniformly approximated by C ∞ smooth functions with no critical points . This kind of result can be regarded as a sort of very strong approximate version of the Morse-Sard theorem. Some consequences of the main theorem are as follows. Every two disjoint closed subsets of X can be separated by a one-codimensional smooth manifold which is a level set of a smooth function with no critical points; this fact may be viewed as a nonlinear analogue of the geometrical version of the Hahn-Banach theorem. In particular, every closed set in X can be uniformly approximated by open sets whose boundaries are C ∞ smooth one-codimensional submanifolds of X . Finally, since every Hilbert manifold is diffeomorphic to an open subset of the Hilbert space, all of these results still hold if one replaces the Hilbert space X with any smooth manifold M modelled on X .