Uniform approximation of continuous mappings by smooth mappings with no critical points on Hilbert manifolds

We prove that every continuous mapping from a separable infinite-dimensional Hilbert space $X$ into $\mathbb{R}^{m}$ can be uniformly approximated by $C^\infty$ smooth mappings {\em with no critical points}. This kind of result can be regarded as a sort of very strong approximate version of the Morse-Sard theorem. Some consequences of the main theorem are as follows. Every two disjoint closed subsets of $X$ can be separated by a one-codimensional smooth manifold which is a level set of a smooth function with no critical points; this fact may be viewed as a nonlinear analogue of the geometrical version of the Hahn-Banach theorem. In particular, every closed set in $X$ can be uniformly approximated by open sets whose boundaries are $C^\infty$ smooth one-codimensional submanifolds of $X$. Finally, since every Hilbert manifold is diffeomorphic to an open subset of the Hilbert space, all of these results still hold if one replaces the Hilbert space $X$ with any smooth manifold $M$ modelled on $X$.