A note on surjectivity of piecewise affine mappings

Abstract

A standard theorem in nonsmooth analysis states that a piecewise affine function $F:\mathbb {R}^n\rightarrow \mathbb {R}^n$ is surjective if it is coherently oriented in that the linear parts of its selection functions all have the same nonzero determinant sign. In this note we prove that surjectivity already follows from coherent orientation of the selection functions which are active on the unbounded sets of a polyhedral subdivision of the domain corresponding to F. A side bonus of the argumentation is a short proof of the classical statement that an injective piecewise affine function is coherently oriented.