On the continuity of the solution map for polynomials

Abstract

In previous work, we proved that the continuous roots of a monic polynomial of degree $d$ whose coefficients depend in a $C^{d-1,1}$ way on real parameters belong to the Sobolev space $W^{1,q}$ for all $1\le q<d/(d-1)$. This is optimal. We obtained uniform bounds that show that the solution map ``coefficients-to-roots'' is bounded with respect to the $C^{d-1,1}$ and the Sobolev $W^{1,q}$ structures on source and target space, respectively. In this paper, we prove that the solution map is continuous, provided that we consider the $C^d$ structure on the space of coefficients. Since there is no canonical choice of an ordered $d$-tuple of the roots, we work in the space of $d$-valued Sobolev functions equipped with a strong notion of convergence. We also interpret the results in the Wasserstein space on the complex plane.