Various approaches to products of residue currents (Q1932401)

Let \(U^f=1/f\) be the principal value current associated to a holomorphic function \(f\) on a complex space and \(R^f=\overline\partial(1/f)\) its residue current, i.e. the \(\overline\partial\)-derivative (in the sense of currents). Then there are different natural ways to regularize \(U^f\) and \(R^f\), i.e. to find smooth forms converging to \(U^f\) and \(R^f\) in the sense of distributions. On one hand, there is the technique of using analytic continuation in residue current theory. Here, one considers for \(\lambda\in\mathbb{C}\), \(\Re(\lambda) >> 0\) the current-valued holomorphic map \[ \lambda \mapsto U^{f,\lambda}:=|f|^{2\lambda}/f \] which has a meromorphic extension to \(\mathbb{C}\) such that the value at \(\lambda=0\) is \(U^f\). Then \[ \lambda \mapsto R^{f,\lambda} := \overline\partial |f|^{2\lambda}/f \] is also meromorphic in \(\mathbb{C}\) and its value at \(\lambda=0\) is \(R^f\). On the other hand, \(U^f\) and \(R^f\) can be obtained as weak limits of explicitly given smooth forms. Let \(\chi\) be a smooth regularization of the characteristic function \({\mathbf 1}_{[1,\infty)}\) and \[ U^{f,\epsilon}:= \chi(|f|^2/\epsilon)/f\;\;,\;\;R^{f,\epsilon}:= \overline\partial\chi(|f|^2/\epsilon)/f. \] Then \[ U^f=\lim_{\epsilon\rightarrow 0} U^{f,\epsilon}\;\;, \;\;\mathbb R^f=\lim_{\epsilon\rightarrow 0} R^{f,\epsilon} \] in the sense of distributions. If \(f=(f_1, \dots , f_p)\) is a tuple of holomorphic functions, then the question of how to define and regularize the Coleff-Herrera product \[ \overline\partial\frac{1}{f_p}\wedge \dots \wedge \overline\partial \frac{1}{f_1} \] is more complicated. In the present paper, the authors study the question to which extent exterior products of natural regularizations of the individual currents \(R^j=\overline\partial (1/f_j)\) yield regularizations of the corresponding Coleff-Herrera product. If \(f=(f_1, \dots , f_p)\) defines a complete intersection (in a possibly singular complex space of pure dimension), then both methods of regularization described above, the \(\lambda\)-method of analytic continuation and the \(\epsilon\)-method of direct approximation by cut-off, yield suitable regularizations of the Coleff-Herrera product.