Preprint

Inserted: 13 aug 2025
Last Updated: 3 sep 2025

Pages: 52
Year: 2025

Abstract:

A comprehensive study of one-dimensional metric currents and their relationship to the geometry of metric spaces is presented. We resolve the one-dimensional flat chain conjecture in this general setting, by proving that its validity is equivalent to a simple geometric connectedness property. More precisely, we prove that metric currents can be approximated in the mass norm by normal currents if and only if every $1$-rectifiable set can be covered by countably many Lipschitz curves up to an $\mathcal H^1$-negligible set. Building on this, we demonstrate that any $1$-current in a Banach space can be completed into a cycle by a rectifiable current, with the added mass controlled by the Kantorovich--Rubinstein norm of its boundary. We further refine our approximation result by showing that these currents can be approximated by polyhedral currents modulo a cycle. Finally, in arbitrary complete metric spaces, we establish a Smirnov-type decomposition for one-dimensional currents. This decomposition expresses such currents as a superposition, without mass cancellation, of currents associated with curves of bounded variation that have a vanishing Cantor part.

Keywords: bounded variation, SBV, Arens--Eells space, Càdlàg function, current, flat chain conjecture, Smirnov's theorem, Kantorovich norm

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