AbstractLetRbe a real closed field, letX⊂Rnbe an irreducible real algebraic set and letZbe an algebraic subset ofXof codimension ≥ 2. Dubois and Efroymson proved the existence of an irreducible algebraic subset ofXof codimension 1 containingZ. We improve this dimension theorem as follows. Indicate by μ the minimum integer such that the ideal of polynomials inR[x1, … ,xn] vanishing onZcan be generated by polynomials of degree ≤ μ. We prove the following two results: (1) There exists a polynomialP∈R[x1, … ,xn] of degree≤ μ+1 such thatX∩P–1(0) is an irreducible algebraic subset ofXof codimension 1 containingZ. (2) LetFbe a polynomial inR[x1, … ,xn] of degreedvanishing onZ. Suppose there exists a nonsingular pointxofXsuch thatF(x) = 0 and the differential atxof the restriction ofFtoXis nonzero. Then there exists a polynomialG∈R[x1, … ,xn] of degree ≤ max﹛d, μ + 1﹜ such that, for eacht∈ (–1, 1) \ ﹛0﹜, the set ﹛x∈X|F(x) +tG(x) = 0﹜ is an irreducible algebraic subset ofXof codimension 1 containingZ. Result (1) and a slightly different version of result (2) are valid over any algebraically closed field also.
The critical set of the reduced norm, as an algebraic set
