Tuesday, 15 March 2011

dg.differential geometry - A polynomial map from ℝ^n to ℝ^n mapping the positive orthant onto ℝ^n?


Question: Is there a polynomial map from ℝn to ℝn under which the image of the positive orthant (the set of points with all coordinates positive) is all of ℝn?




Some observations:



My intuition is that the answer must be 'no'... but I confess my intuition for this sort of geometric problem is not very well-developed.



Of course it is relatively easy to show that the answer is 'no' when n=1. (In fact it seems like a nice homework problem for some calculus students.) But I can't seem to get any traction for n>1.



This feels like the sort of thing that should have an easy proof, but then I remember feeling that way the first time I saw the Jacobian conjecture... now I'm wary of statements about polynomial maps of ℝn!

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