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First of all, I'm sorry if I used the wrong tags for this question, please tell me if you want me to change them.

During a reading of a paper, I came across a lemma that is useful for my research (I study the characteristics of a certain function in algebraic geometry) and I tried to prove it without success. Here it is (Lemme 2.7 from B.Lehmann’s paper - "Volume type functions for numerical cycle classes"):

Let $V$ be a finite dimensional $\mathbb Q$-vector space and let $C \subset V$ be a salient full-dimensional closed convex cone (i.e it is a convex cone such that $C - C = V$ and for every $v \in C$, we have $-v \notin C$). Suppose that $f : V \to \mathbb R_{\geq 0}$ is a function satisfying

  1. $f(e) > 0$ for any $e \in C^{\text{int}}$,
  2. there is some constant $c > 0$ so that $f(me) = m^cf(e)$ for any $m \in \mathbb Q_{>0}$ and $e \in C$,
  3. for every $v,e \in C^{\text{int}}$ we have $f(v+e) \geq f(v)$.

Then $f$ is locally uniformly continuous on $C^{\text{int}}$.

All I could observe is that the values taken by elements of the cone C close to $0_V$ must be small by the formula

$$\forall v \in C^{\text{int}}, \forall m \geq 1 : ~~f\left( \dfrac{1}{m}v \right) = \dfrac{1}{m^c} f(v)$$

I tried to formulate a proof in the same style that demonstrates the continuity of a linear application in $0_V$ but I did not have more ideas than that. Any thought is welcome. Thank you!

J. W. Tanner
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NaNoS
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  • I would try to argue along the following lines: Fix $e\in C^\mathrm{int}$. For any other $y\in C^\mathrm{int}$ pick $\varepsilon(y, e)\in \mathbb{Q}_{>0}$ such that $y-(1-\varepsilon(y,e))e, y-(1+\varepsilon(y,e))e \in C^\mathrm{int}$. Then we get $$ (1-\varepsilon(y,e))^c f(e) \leq f(y) \leq (1+\varepsilon(y,e))^c f(e). $$ In particular this means $$ \vert f(y)- f(e) \vert \leq \varepsilon(y,e)^c f(e). $$ To get uniform continuity we need to get a better handle on $\varepsilon(y,e)$. – Severin Schraven Mar 13 '24 at 19:00
  • One also needs that $f$ is locally bounded. For every $r>0$ there exists $x_r\in C^\mathrm{int}$ such that $C\cap B(0,r) \subseteq x_r-C^\mathrm{int}$. Then we get for all $x\in C \cap B(0,r)$ that $0\leq f(x) \leq f(x_r)$. – Severin Schraven Mar 13 '24 at 20:00
  • @SeverinSchraven Thank you for your help. I think that $\varepsilon(y,e)$ does not exist. In fact, if $y - \left(1-\varepsilon(y,e)\right)e$ and $y - \left(1+\varepsilon(y,e)\right)e$ are in $C^{\text{int}}$, their sum $2(y-e)$ is in $C$ and $y-e \in C$. But now we can argue the same way and show that $e - y \in C$ which is impossible because $C$ is salient. Nevertheless, we can always find $t > 0$ such that $y - te \in C^{\text{int}}$ and we can assume that $t = 1 - \varepsilon$ so that we always have an inequality $(1-\varepsilon)^cf(e) \leq f(y)$. – NaNoS Mar 14 '24 at 13:00
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    I am sorry, I meant $$y-(1-\varepsilon)e, (1+\varepsilon)e-y\in C^\mathrm{int}.$$ Geometrically I want to go in "zickzack" from the ray spanned by $e$ to $y$ and back. Then we have $$(1-\varepsilon)^m f(e)=f((1-\varepsilon)e)\leq f(y)\leq f((1+\varepsilon)e)=(1+\varepsilon)^m f(e)$$ and therefore $$\vert f(y)-f(e)\vert \leq ((1+\varepsilon)^m-(1-\varepsilon)^m)f(e).$$ – Severin Schraven Mar 14 '24 at 16:12
  • To get better control on $\varepsilon$ we can start with our point $e\in C^\text{int}$ and pick $\vert e\vert/8>\delta>0$ such that $B(e,4\delta)\subset C^\text{int}$. Now let $\tilde{C}=\mathbb{Q}_{>0} B(e,4\delta)$ be the cone generated by the ball around $e$. Pick any $z\in B(e,\delta)$, then there exists $\theta\in (0,\pi/4)$ such that for every $z\in B(e, \delta)$ we have that the cone with opening angle $\theta$ along $z$ is contained in $\tilde{C}$, i.e. $$C_z:={ v\in \mathbb{Q}^d \ : \ \vert \langle v,z\rangle \vert \leq \cos(\theta) \vert z\vert} \subseteq \tilde{C}.$$ – Severin Schraven Mar 14 '24 at 17:25
  • I meant to write $$0<\langle v,z\rangle \leq \cos(\theta)\vert z\vert.$$ In any case, if we pretend that we are in $\mathbb{R}^d$, then we can just rotate and wlog assume that $z=e$ to do all the computations and see that the choice for $\varepsilon$ can be made locally uniformly (this can be made rigorously by noting that the rationals are dense in the reals and making $\varepsilon$ slighly larger). – Severin Schraven Mar 14 '24 at 17:47
  • A rough estimate will give for $\vert e - y \vert <\delta$ that $$ \varepsilon = \vert e-y\vert(1 + \cot(\theta)) $$ is an admissible choice if we were in $\mathbb{R}^d$. Thus, in $\mathbb{Q}^d$ $$ \varepsilon = 2\vert e-y\vert(1 + \cot(\theta))$$ will work. – Severin Schraven Mar 14 '24 at 19:57
  • More generally, for any $z\in B(e,\delta)$ and any $y\in B(z,\delta)$ we can make use of $C_z$ and get that $$ \varepsilon = 2\vert z-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)) $$ is an admissible choice. Which implies that for $$ \vert f(y) -f(z) \vert \leq \left[\left( 1+ 2\vert z-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta))\right)^c- \left( 1- 2\vert z-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta))\right)^c\right] f(z).$$ However, by a similar argument as before, we get $$ 0\leq f(z) \leq (1+2\delta(1+\cot(\theta)))^c f(e). $$ This yields that $f$ is uniformly continuous on $B(e,\delta)$. – Severin Schraven Mar 14 '24 at 20:07
  • Thank you very much. It seems good to me, could you write an answer so that I accept it? You deserve visibility for providing such a detailed answer. @SeverinSchraven – NaNoS Mar 15 '24 at 10:47
  • I will write something, though it may be only be on Sunday. Can I also ask for one clarification? How do you topologize $V$? It is apriori unclear to me that I am allowed to identify $V$ with $\mathbb{Q}^d$ in the subspace topology (say $V={ a+\sqrt{2}b\in \mathbb{R} \ : \ a,b\in \mathbb{Q}}$ with the subspace topology, then it is unclear how to pass to the topology I want). – Severin Schraven Mar 15 '24 at 16:19
  • No problem, take your time. Yes we can clearly identify $V$ to $\mathbb Q^d$, in reality it just comes from an algebraic geometry problem where we consider a cone in $N^1_{\mathbb Q}(X) := N^1(X) \otimes_{\mathbb Z} \mathbb Q$ where $N^1(X)$ is the free abelian group of finite rank $\rho(X)$ called "Nero-Severi group" of a variety $X$. Whenever we consider such an object, we identify it with $\mathbb Q^ {\rho(X)}$ and we take the usual topology of $\mathbb Q^{\rho(X)}$ (the one induced by the usual topology of $\mathbb R^{\rho(X)}$ making it as a Hausdorff topological space). – NaNoS Mar 15 '24 at 16:37
  • I see, I got a bit worried that one might need to struggle to pass to the nicer topology :) in this case everything should be fine. – Severin Schraven Mar 15 '24 at 17:05

1 Answers1

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This answer is somewhat verbose, it might helpt to just draw the corresponding picture for yourself.

We are assuming that $V=\mathbb{Q}^d$ with the subspace topology inherited from the Euclidean topology on $\mathbb{R}^d$ (the OP clarified in the comments that this is the setting of interest to them). Furthermore, we will assume that $d\geq 2$ (the case $d=1$ is trivial as $C$ would be a half-space and $f(x) = \vert x\vert^m f(e)$ for $x\in C^\mathrm{int}$ and $e=1$ if $C=[0,\infty)$ and $e=-1$ if $C=(-\infty,0]$. Clearly $f$ is locally uniformly continuous). In this answer, we denote by $B(x,r)=\{v\in \mathbb{Q}^d \ : \ \vert v-x\vert <r\}$ the ball in $\mathbb{Q}^d$ of radius $r$ centered at $x$.

We want to prove that the map $f$ is locally uniformly bounded on $C^\mathrm{int}$. The only thing which is of quantitative nature in our assumption is the requirement that $$ f(c x) = c^m f(x) $$ for all $c\in \mathbb{Q}_{>0}$ and all $x\in C$. We would like to make use of this to estimate the difference between close points. Namely, if we want to compare $x,y\in C^\mathrm{int}$, then we would like to make a "zigzag" between $x$ and the ray spanned by $y$. More precisely, we would like to find $\varepsilon(x,y)>0$ such that $$ y-(1-\varepsilon(x,y))x, (1+\varepsilon(x,y))x-y\in C^\mathrm{int}. $$ In that case we have by conditions $1$ and $2$ that $$ \left( 1-\varepsilon(x,y) \right)^m f(x) = f((1-\varepsilon(x,y)x) \leq f(y) \leq f((1+\varepsilon(x,y))x) = \left( 1+\varepsilon(x,y) \right)^m f(x). $$ In particular, this implies $$ \vert f(x)-f(y) \vert \leq \left[ \left( 1+\varepsilon(x,y) \right)^m - \left( 1-\varepsilon(x,y) \right)^m \right] f(x). $$

We need to make sure that both $\varepsilon(x,y)$ are locally uniformly controlled and $f(x)$ too.

Let us fix some $e\in C^\mathrm{int}$ and some $0<\delta <\vert e\vert/8$ such that $B(e,4\delta)\subset C^\mathrm{int}$. In particular, this means that for every $x\in B(e,\delta)$ the cone $C_x = \mathbb{Q}_{>0} B(x,2\delta)$ generated by $B(x,2\delta)$ is contained in $C^\mathrm{int}$. There exists $\theta \in (0,\pi/2)$ such that all $C_x$ contain a cone of the form $$ \{ v\in \mathbb{Q}^d \ : \ 0<\langle v,x \rangle \leq\cos(\theta) \vert x \vert \} \subseteq C_x \subseteq C^\mathrm{int}.$$ In particular, this means that if we were in $\mathbb{R}^d$ (instead of $\mathbb{Q}^d$), then we could just use (highschool) geometry to compute $\varepsilon(x,y)$ for $y\in B(x,\delta)$. Let's do this first.

We can rotate everything to reduce to the case where $x=(\vert x \vert, 0, \dots, 0)\in \mathbb{R}^d$ and $y=(y_1, y_2, 0, \dots, 0)\in \mathbb{R}^d$ and $y_1, y_2\geq 0$ (so really we are in $\mathbb{R}^2$). We are asking where we need to start on the ray generated by $(1,0, \dots, 0)$ to reach $y$ by adding only a vector in $C_{(\vert x \vert,0,\dots, 0)}$. The cone $C_{(\vert x \vert,0,\dots, 0)}$ has an opening angle of $\theta$ around $\mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}(1, 0, \dots, 0)$, thus, starting at $( y_1-y_2 \cot(\theta), 0, \dots, 0)$ would do the job. Similarly, if we start at $y$ and need to reach the ray generated by $(1,0, \dots, 0)$ by adding only a vector in $C_{(\vert x \vert,0,\dots, 0)}$, we can choose $$ (y_1+y_2 \cot(\theta), 0, \dots, 0). $$ We have $$ \vert \vert x \vert - (y_1\pm\cot(\theta)y_2)\vert \leq \vert x-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)).$$ Here we have used that $0\leq y_1\leq \vert x-y\vert$.

All of those computations assumed that we are in $\mathbb{R}^d$. In order to account for the fact that not all those numbers would be in the reals, we just introduce an additional factor of $2$ (if we'd really care about constants, we could drop it by just approximating suitably and noting that everything is well-behaved). Then we one sees that $$ \varepsilon(x,y) = 2 \vert x-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)) $$ is an admissible choice (recall that $\theta$ is constant in the choosen neighborhood).

So far we have shown that there exists $\theta\in (0, \pi/4)$ such that for all $x,y\in B(e,2\delta)$ we get $$ \vert f(x)-f(y) \vert \leq \left( \left[ 1+2 \vert x-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)) \right]^m - \left[ 1-2 \vert x-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)) \right]^m \right) f(x). $$ Using the same argument as before, comparing $x$ to $e$, we get for all $x,y\in B(e,2\delta)$ $$ \vert f(x)-f(y) \vert \leq \left( \left[ 1+2 \vert x-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)) \right]^m - \left[ 1-2 \vert x-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)) \right]^m \right) \left( 1+ 2\delta(1+\cot(\theta)) \right) f(e). $$ This proves that $f$ is locally uniformly continuous on $C^\mathrm{int}$ as there exists a constant $C_{\theta,m}$ depending only on $\theta,m$ such that for all $x,y\in \mathbb{R}^d$ holds $$ \left[ 1+2 \vert x-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)) \right]^m - \left[ 1-2 \vert x-y\vert (1+\cot(\theta)) \right]^m \leq C_{\theta,m} \vert x-y\vert.$$

Note that this proof gives us a slightly stronger result. Namely, we get that $f$ is locally lipschitz on $C^\mathrm{int}$.