A p-adic Montel Theorem and Locally Polynomial Functions

Abstract

We prove a version of both Jacobi's and Montel's Theorems for the case of continuous functions defined over the field $\mathbb{Q}_p$ of $p$-adic numbers. In particular, we prove that, if \[ \Delta_{h_0}^{m+1}f(x)=0 \ \ \text{for all} x\in\mathbb{Q}_p, \] and $|h_0|_p=p^{-N_0}$ then, for all $x_0\in \mathbb{Q}_p$, the restriction of $f$ over the set $x_0+p^{N_0}\mathbb{Z}_p$ coincides with a polynomial $p_{x_0}(x)=a_0(x_0)+a_1(x_0)x+...+a_m(x_0)x^m$. Motivated by this result, we compute the general solution of the functional equation with restrictions given by {equation} \Delta_h^{m+1}f(x)=0 \ \ (x\in X \text{and} h\in B_X(r)=\{x\in X:\|x\|\leq r\}), {equation} whenever $f:X\to Y$, $X$ is an ultrametric normed space over a non-Archimedean valued field $(\mathbb{K},|...|)$ of characteristic zero, and $Y$ is a $\mathbb{Q}$-vector space. By obvious reasons, we call these functions uniformly locally polynomial.