Cutting sets of continuous functions on the unit interval

Abstract: For a function $f\colon [0,1]\to\mathbb R$, we consider the set $E(f)$ of points at which $f$ cuts the real axis. Given $f\colon [0,1]\to\mathbb R$ and a Cantor set $D\subset [0,1]$ with ${0,1}\subset D$, we obtain conditions equivalent to the conjunction $f\in C[0,1]$ (or $f\in C^\infty [0,1]$) and $D\subset E(f)$. This generalizes some ideas of Zabeti. We observe that, if $f$ is continuous, then $E(f)$ is a closed nowhere dense subset of $f^{-1}[{ 0}]$ where each $x\in {0,1}\cap E(f)$ is an accumulation point of $E(f)$. Our main result states that, for a closed nowhere dense set $F\subset [0,1]$ with each $x\in {0,1}\cap E(f)$ being an accumulation point of $F$, there exists $f\in C^\infty [0,1]$ such that $F=E(f)$.