Quantitative tame properties of differentiable functions with controlled derivatives

Abstract

We show that differentiable functions, defined on a convex body K⊆Rd, whose derivatives are controlled by a suitable given sequence of positive real numbers share many properties with polynomials. The role of the degree of a polynomial is hereby played by an integer associated with the given sequence of reals, the diameter of K, and a real parameter linked to the C0-norm of the function. We give quantitative information on the size of the zero set, show that it admits a local parameterization by Sobolev functions, and prove an inequality of Remez-type. From the latter, we deduce several consequences, for instance, a bound on the volume of sublevel sets and a comparison of Lp-norms reversing Hölder’s inequality. The validity of many of the results only depends on the derivatives up to some finite order; the order can be specified in terms of the given data.