A Whitney Extension Problem for Manifolds

The purpose of this paper is to address a manifold-based version of Whitney's extension problem: Given a compact set $E\subset\mathbb{R}^n$, how can we tell if there exists a $d$-dimensional, $C^m$-smooth manifold $\mathcal{M}\supset E$? We provide an answer for compact manifolds with boundary in terms of a Glaeser refinement much like that used in the solution of the classical Whitney extension problem and a topological condition. This condition is the existence of a continuous selection for Grassmannian-valued functions, meant to reflect the collection of possible tangent spaces. We demonstrate the necessity of this condition in general and its non-redundancy in an example, while also showing it need not be checked when $d=1$.

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