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We give a new, elementary proof of the fact that metric 1-currents in the Euclidean space correspond to Federer-Fleming flat chains.

We prove a refined version of the celebrated Lusin type theorem for gradients by Alberti, stating that any Borel vector field $f$ coincides with the gradient of a $C^1$ function $g$, outside a set $E$ of arbitrarily small Lebesgue measure. We replace the Lebesgue measure with any Radon measure $\mu$, and we obtain that the estimate on the $L^p$ norm of $Dg$ does not depend on $\mu(E)$, if the value of $f$ is $\mu$-a.e. orthogonal to the decomposability bundle of $\mu$. We observe that our result implies the 1-dimensional version of the flat chain conjecture by Ambrosio and Kirchheim on the equivalence between metric currents and flat chains with finite mass in $\mathbb{R}^n$ and we state a suitable generalization for $k$-forms, which would imply the validity of the conjecture in full generality.

We discuss the closability of directional derivative operators with respect to a general Radon measure $\mu$ on $\mathbb{R}^d$; our main theorem completely characterizes the vectorfields for which the corresponding operator is closable from the space of Lipschitz functions ${\mathrm{Lip}}(\mathbb{R^d})$ to $L^p(\mu)$, for $1\leq p\leq\infty$. We also consider certain classes of multilinear differential operators. We then discuss the closability of the same operators from $L^q(\mu)$ to $L^p(\mu)$; we give necessary conditions and sufficient conditions for closability, but we do not have an exact characterization. As a corollary we obtain that classical differential operators such as gradient, divergence and jacobian determinant are closable from $L^q(\mu)$ to $L^p(\mu)$ only if $\mu$ is absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure. Lastly, we rephrase our results on multilinear operators in terms of metric currents.

We prove that every flat chain with finite mass in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with coefficients in a normed abelian group $G$ is the restriction of a normal $G$-current to a Borel set. We deduce a characterization of real flat chains with finite mass in terms of a pointwise relation between the associated measure and vector field. We also deduce that any codimension-one real flat chain with finite mass can be written as an integral of multiplicity-one rectifiable currents, without loss of mass. Given a Lipschitz homomorphism $\phi:\tilde G\to G$ between two groups, we then study the associated map $\pi$ between flat chains in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with coefficients in $\tilde G$ and $G$ respectively. In the case $\tilde G=\mathbb{R}$ and $G=\mathbb{S}^1$, we prove that if $\phi$ is surjective, so is the restriction of $\pi$ to the set of flat chains with finite mass of dimension $0$, $1$, $d-1$, $d$.

We consider codimension $1$ area-minimizing $m$-dimensional currents $T$ mod an even integer $p=2Q$ in a $C^2$ Riemannian submanifold $\Sigma$ of the Euclidean space. We prove a suitable excess-decay estimate towards the unique tangent cone at every point $q\in \mathrm{spt} (T)\setminus \mathrm{spt}^p (\partial T)$ where at least one such tangent cone is $Q$ copies of a single plane. While an analogous decay statement was proved in arXiv:2111.11202 as a corollary of a more general theory for stable varifolds, in our statement we strive for the optimal dependence of the estimates upon the second fundamental form of $\Sigma$. This technical improvement is in fact needed in arXiv:2201.10204 to prove that the singular set of $T$ can be decomposed into a $C^{1,\alpha}$ $(m-1)$-dimensional submanifold and an additional closed remaining set of Hausdorff dimension at most $m-2$., Comment: 74 pages, 1 figure. Comments are welcome!

Given a complete Riemannian manifold $\mathcal{M}\subset\mathbb{R}^d$ which is a Lipschitz neighbourhood retract of dimension $m+n$, of class $C^{h,\beta}$ and an oriented, closed submanifold $\Gamma \subset \mathcal M$ of dimension $m-1$, which is a boundary in integral homology, we construct a complete metric space $\mathcal{B}$ of $C^{h,\alpha}$-perturbations of $\Gamma$ inside $\mathcal{M}$, with $\alpha<\beta$, enjoying the following property. For the typical element $b\in\mathcal B$, in the sense of Baire categories, there exists a unique $m$-dimensional integral current in $\mathcal{M}$ which solves the corresponding Plateau problem and it has multiplicity one., Comment: Minor changes

We provide a suitable generalisation of Pansu's differentiability theorem to general Radon measures on Carnot groups and we show that if Lipschitz maps between Carnot groups are Pansu-differentiable almost everywhere for some Radon measures $\mu$, then $\mu$ must be absolutely continuous with respect to the Haar measure of the group.

We prove that for the generic boundary, in the sense of Baire categories, there exists a unique minimizer of the associated optimal branched transportation problem.

Consider an area minimizing current modulo $p$ of dimension $m$ in a smooth Riemannian manifold of dimension $m+1$. We prove that its interior singular set is, up to a relatively closed set of dimension at most $m-2$, a $C^{1,\alpha}$ submanifold of dimension $m-1$ at which, locally, $N\leq p$ regular sheets of the current join transversally, each sheet counted with a positive multiplicity $k_i$ so that $\sum_i k_i = p$. This completes the analysis of the structure of the singular set of area minimizing hypersurfaces modulo $p$, initiated by J. Taylor for $m=2$ and $p=3$ and extended by the authors to arbitrary $m$ and all odd $p$ in arXiv:2105.08135. We tackle the remaining case of even $p$ by showing that the set of singular points admitting a flat blow-up is of codimension at least two in the current. First, we prove a structural result for the singularities of minimizers in the linearized problem, by combining an epiperimetric inequality with an analysis of homogeneous minimizers to conclude that the corresponding degrees of homogeneity are always integers; second, we refine Almgren's blow-up procedure to prove that all flat singularities of the current persist as singularities of the $\mathrm{Dir}$-minimizing limit. An important ingredient of our analysis is the uniqueness of flat tangent cones at singular points, recently established by Minter and Wickramasekera in arXiv:2111.11202., Comment: 44 pages. Comments are very welcome! In v2 we have strengthened the conclusions of Theorem 1.4

We consider area minimizing $m$-dimensional currents $\mathrm{mod}(p)$ in complete $C^2$ Riemannian manifolds $\Sigma$ of dimension $m+1$. For odd moduli we prove that, away from a closed rectifiable set of codimension $2$, the current in question is, locally, the union of finitely many smooth minimal hypersurfaces coming together at a common $C^{1,\alpha}$ boundary of dimension $m-1$, and the result is optimal. For even $p$ such structure holds in a neighborhood of any point where at least one tangent cone has $(m-1)$-dimensional spine. These structural results are indeed the byproduct of a theorem that proves (for any modulus) uniqueness and decay towards such tangent cones. The underlying strategy of the proof is inspired by the techniques developed by Leon Simon in "Cylindrical tangent cones and the singular set of minimal submanifolds" (J. Diff. Geom. 1993) in a class of multiplicity one stationary varifolds. The major difficulty in our setting is produced by the fact that the cones and surfaces under investigation have arbitrary multiplicities ranging from $1$ to $\lfloor \frac{p}{2}\rfloor$., Comment: 102 pages, 6 figures. Comments are welcome! In v2 some typos are corrected, acknowledgments and addresses are added; in v3 we added, in the Introduction, a paragraph concerning the implications of Wickramasekera's work on stable varifolds for the topic of the present paper

We prove the stability of optimal traffic plans in branched transport. In particular, we show that any limit of optimal traffic plans is optimal as well. This is the Lagrangian counterpart of the recent Eulerian version proved in [CDM19a].

We establish a first general partial regularity theorem for area minimizing currents $\mathrm{mod}(p)$, for every $p$, in any dimension and codimension. More precisely, we prove that the Hausdorff dimension of the interior singular set of an $m$-dimensional area minimizing current $\mathrm{mod}(p)$ cannot be larger than $m-1$. Additionally, we show that, when $p$ is odd, the interior singular set is $(m-1)$-rectifiable with locally finite $(m-1)$-dimensional measure., Comment: 96 pages. Second part of a two-papers work aimed at establishing a first general partial regularity theory for area minimizing currents modulo p, for any p and in any dimension and codimension. v3 is the final version, to appear on Geom. Funct. Anal

We establish a theory of $Q$-valued functions minimizing a suitable generalization of the Dirichlet integral. In a second paper the theory will be used to approximate efficiently area minimizing currents $\mathrm{mod}(p)$ when $p=2Q$, and to establish a first general partial regularity theorem for every $p$ in any dimension and codimension., Comment: 37 pages. First part of a two-papers work aimed at establishing a first general partial regularity theory for area minimizing currents modulo p, for any p and in any dimension and codimension. v3 is the final version, to appear on Comm. Pure Appl. Math

In this note we introduce a new model for the mailing problem in branched transportation in order to allow the cost functional to take into account the orientation of the moving particles. This gives an effective answer to [Problem 15.9] of the book "Optimal transportation networks" by Bernot, Caselles, and Morel. Moreover we define a convex relaxation in terms of rectifiable currents with group coefficients. With such approach we provide the problem with a notion of calibration. Using similar techniques we define a convex relaxation and a corresponding notion of calibration for a variant of the Steiner tree problem in which a connectedness constraint is assigned only among a certain partition of a given set of finitely many points.

We show in full generality the stability of optimal traffic paths in branched transport: namely we prove that any limit of optimal traffic paths is optimal as well. This solves an open problem in the field (cf. Open problem 1 in the book Optimal transportation networks, by Bernot, Caselles and Morel), which has been addressed up to now only under restrictive assumptions.

Based on Smirnov's decomposition theorem we prove that every rectifiable $1$-current $T$ with finite mass $\mathbb{M}(T)$ and finite mass $\mathbb{M}(\partial T)$ of its boundary $\partial T$ can be approximated in mass by a sequence of rectifiable $1$-currents $T_n$ with polyhedral boundary $\partial T_n$ and $\mathbb{M}(\partial T_n)$ no larger than $\mathbb{M}(\partial T)$. Using this result we can compute the relaxation of the $h$-mass for polyhedral $1$-currents with respect to the joint weak-$\ast$ convergence of currents and their boundaries. We obtain that this relaxation coincides with the usual $h$-mass for normal currents. This shows that the concepts of so-called generalized branched transport and the $h$-mass are equivalent.

In this paper we study general transportation problems in $\mathbb{R}^n$, in which $m$ different goods are moved simultaneously. The initial and final positions of the goods are prescribed by measures $\mu^-$, $\mu^+$ on $\mathbb{R}^n$ with values in $\mathbb{R}^m$. When the measures are finite atomic, a discrete transportation network is a measure $T$ on $\mathbb{R}^n$ with values in $\mathbb{R}^{n\times m}$ represented by an oriented graph $\mathcal{G}$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$ whose edges carry multiplicities in $\mathbb{R}^m$. The constraint is encoded in the relation ${\rm div}(T)=\mu^--\mu^+$. The cost of the discrete transportation $T$ is obtained integrating on $\mathcal{G}$ a general function $\mathcal{C}:\mathbb{R}^m\to\mathbb{R}$ of the multiplicity. When the initial data $\left(\mu^-,\mu^+\right)$ are arbitrary (possibly diffuse) measures, the cost of a transportation network between them is computed by relaxation of the functional on graphs mentioned above. Our main result establishes the existence of cost-minimizing transportation networks for arbitrary data $\left(\mu^-,\mu^+\right)$. Furthermore, under additional assumptions on the cost integrand $\mathcal{C}$, we prove the existence of transportation networks with finite cost and the stability of the minimizers with respect to variations of the given data. Finally, we provide an explicit integral representation formula for the cost of rectifiable transportation networks, and we characterize the costs such that every transportation network with finite cost is rectifiable., Comment: 44 pages. The latest version, v4, contains some clarifications on the proof of Proposition 9.8

We prove that optimal traffic plans for the mailing problem in $\mathbb{R}^d$ are stable with respect to variations of the given coupling, above the critical exponent $\alpha=1-1/d$, thus solving an open problem stated in the book "Optimal transportation networks", by Bernot, Caselles and Morel. We apply our novel result to study some regularity properties of the minimizers of the mailing problem. In particular, we show that only finitely many connected components of an optimal traffic plan meet together at any branching point.

In this paper we study a variant of the branched transportation problem, that we call multi-material transport problem. This is a transportation problem, where distinct commodities are transported simultaneously along a network. The cost of the transportation depends on the network used to move the masses, as it is common in models studied in branched transportation. The main novelty is that in our model the cost per unit length of the network does not depend only on the total flow, but on the actual quantity of each commodity. This allows to take into account different interactions between the transported goods. We propose an Eulerian formulation of the discrete problem, describing the flow of each commodity through every point of the network. We provide minimal assumptions on the cost, under which existence of solutions can be proved. Moreover, we prove that, under mild additional assumptions, the problem can be rephrased as a mass minimization problem in a class of rectifiable currents with coefficients in a group, allowing to introduce a notion of calibration. The latter result is new even in the well studied framework of the "single-material" branched transportation., Comment: Accepted: SIAM J. Math. Anal

In this paper we extend the results of "A strong minimax property of nondegenerate minimal submanifolds" by White, where it is proved that any smooth, compact submanifold, which is a strictly stable critical point for an elliptic parametric functional, is the unique minimizer in a certain geodesic tubular neighbourhood. We prove a similar result, replacing the tubular neighbourhood with one induced by the flat distance and we provide quantitative estimates. Our proof is based on the introduction of a penalized minimization problem, in the spirit of "A selection principle for the sharp quantitative isoperimetric inequality" by Cicalese and Leonardi, which allows us to exploit the regularity theory for almost minimizers of elliptic parametric integrands.

We prove that for any singular measure $\mu$ on $\mathbb{R}^n$ it is possible to cover $\mu$-almost every point with $n$ families of Lipschitz slabs of arbitrarily small total width. More precisely, up to a rotation, for every $\delta>0$ there are $n$ countable families of $1$-Lipschitz functions $\{f_i^1\}_{i\in\mathbb{N}},\ldots, \{f_i^n\}_{i\in\mathbb{N}},$ $f_i^j:\{x_j=0\}\subset\mathbb{R}^n\to\mathbb{R}$, and $n$ sequences of positive real numbers $\{\varepsilon_i^1\}_{i\in\mathbb{N}},\ldots, \{\varepsilon_i^n\}_{i\in\mathbb{N}}$ such that, denoting $\hat x_j$ the orthogonal projection of the point $x$ onto $\{x_j=0\}$ and $$I_i^j:=\{x=(x_1,\ldots,x_n)\in \mathbb{R}^n:f_i^j(\hat x_j)-\varepsilon_i^j< x_j< f_i^j(\hat x_j)+\varepsilon_i^j\},$$ it holds $\sum_{i,j}\varepsilon_i^j\leq \delta$ and $\mu(\mathbb{R}^n\setminus\bigcup_{i,j}I_i^j)=0.$ We apply this result to show that, if $\mu$ is not absolutely continuous, it is possible to approximate the identity with a sequence $g_h$ of smooth equi-Lipschitz maps satisfying $$\limsup_{h\to\infty}\int_{\mathbb{R}^n}{\rm{det}}(\nabla g_h) d\mu<\mu(\mathbb{R}^n).$$ From this, we deduce a simple proof of the fact that every top-dimensional Ambrosio-Kirchheim metric current in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is a Federer-Fleming flat chain.

In this note we prove an explicit formula for the lower semicontinuous envelope of some functionals defined on real polyhedral chains. More precisely, denoting by $H \colon \mathbb{R} \to \left[ 0,\infty \right)$ an even, subadditive, and lower semicontinuous function with $H(0)=0$, and by $\Phi_H$ the functional induced by $H$ on polyhedral $m$-chains, namely \[ \Phi_{H}(P) := \sum_{i=1}^{N} H(\theta_{i}) \mathcal{H}^{m}(\sigma_{i}), \quad\mbox{for every }P=\sum_{i=1}^{N} \theta_{i} [[ \sigma_{i} ]] \in\mathbf{P}_m(\mathbb{R}^n), \] we prove that the lower semicontinuous envelope of $\Phi_H$ coincides on rectifiable $m$-currents with the $H$-mass \[ \mathbb{M}_{H}(R) := \int_E H(\theta(x)) \, d\mathcal{H}^m(x) \quad \mbox{ for every } R= [[ E,\tau,\theta ]] \in \mathbf{R}_{m}(\mathbb{R}^{n}). \], Comment: 14 pages

Models involving branched structures are employed to describe several supply-demand systems such as the structure of the nerves of a leaf, the system of roots of a tree and the nervous or cardiovascular systems. Given a flow (traffic path) that transports a given measure $\mu^-$ onto a target measure $\mu^+$, along a 1-dimensional network, the transportation cost per unit length is supposed in these models to be proportional to a concave power $\alpha \in (0,1)$ of the intensity of the flow. In this paper we address an open problem in the book "Optimal transportation networks" by Bernot, Caselles and Morel and we improve the stability for optimal traffic paths in the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^d$, with respect to variations of the given measures $(\mu^-,\mu^+)$, which was known up to now only for $\alpha>1-\frac1d$. We prove it for exponents $\alpha>1-\frac1{d-1}$ (in particular, for every $\alpha \in (0,1)$ when $d=2$), for a fairly large class of measures $\mu^+$ and $\mu^-$.

In this article we prove that the singular set of Dirichlet-minimizing $Q$-valued functions is countably $(m-2)$-rectifiable and we give upper bounds for the $(m-2)$-dimensional Minkowski content of the set of singular points with multiplicity $Q$.

In this paper, we prove that every equivalence class in the quotient group of integral $1$-currents modulo $p$ in Euclidean space contains an integral current, with quantitative estimates on its mass and the mass of its boundary. Moreover, we show that the validity of this statement for $m$-dimensional integral currents modulo $p$ implies that the family of $(m-1)$-dimensional flat chains of the form $pT$, with $T$ a flat chain, is closed with respect to the flat norm. In particular, we deduce that such closedness property holds for $0$-dimensional flat chains, and, using a proposition from "The structure of minimizing hypersurfaces mod $4$" by Brian White, also for flat chains of codimension $1$., Comment: 19 pages. Final version, to appear in Adv. Calc. Var

Let $Q=(0,1)^2$ be the unit square in $\mathbb{R}^2$. We prove that in a suitable complete metric space of $BV$ homeomorphisms $f:Q\rightarrow Q$ with $f_{|\partial Q}=Id$, the generical homeomorphism (in the sense of Baire categories) maps a null set in a set of full measure and vice versa. Moreover we observe that, for $1\leq p<2$, in the most reasonable complete metric space for such problem, the family of $W^{1,p}$ homemomorphisms satisfying the above property is of first category, instead.

In this note we prove an abstract version of a recent quantitative stratifcation priciple introduced by Cheeger and Naber (Invent. Math., 191 (2013), no. 2, 321-339; Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 66 (2013), no. 6, 965-990). Using this general regularity result paired with an $\varepsilon$-regularity theorem we provide a new estimate of the Minkowski dimension of the set of higher multiplicity points of a Dir-minimizing Q-valued function. The abstract priciple is applicable to several other problems: we recover recent results in the literature and we obtain also some improvements in more classical contexts., Comment: modified title; minor changes