Hadamard-Lévy theorems for maps taking values in a finite dimensional space

Abstract

We propose global surjectivity theorems of differentiable maps based on second order conditions. Using the homotopy continuation method, we demonstrate that, for a $C^2$ differentiable map from a Hilbert space to a finite-dimensional Euclidean space, when its second-order differential has uniform upper and lower bounds, it has a global path-lifting property in the presence of singularities. This is then applied to the nonlinear motion planning problem, establishing in some cases the well-posedness of the continuation method despite critical values of the endpoint maps.