Flat forms in Banach spaces (Q1948720)

The author shows that the space of flat partial differential forms in a Banach space is isometric to the dual space of flat chains in the spirit of \textit{T. Adams} [J. Geom. Anal. 18, No. 1, 1--28 (2008; Zbl 1148.49037)]. This result can be regarded as a new version of the Wolfe's theorem [\textit{H. Whitney}, Geometric integration theory. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press; London: Oxford University Press (1957; Zbl 0083.28204)] in the finite dimensional setting. As it is pointed out in the Introduction, this version could lead to a general theory of Cartan-Whitney presentations due to \textit{J. Heinonen} and \textit{D. Sullivan} [Duke Math. J. 114, No. 1, 15--41 (2002; Zbl 1019.58002)] in Banach spaces. This sounds very interesting for researchers in this subject. The first sections deal with the basic definitions and results in flat chains and cochains in Banach spaces and the flat norm of these spaces. The paper continues with the definition of partial forms and the flat norm. A partial form in a Banach space can be thought as a measurable family of \(k\)-forms which are almost everywhere well defined on each \(k\)-dimensional affine subspace of the given Banach space. This is the trick to avoid some of the problems of the infinite-dimensional setting and the way to link with the classical Wolfe's theorem via restriction on each finite dimensional affine subspace. Flat partial forms can be regarded as classical forms in the finite dimensional case but the flat norm can be different, being the classical norm a lower bound for the flat norm in partial forms (see Example 33, Lemma 45 and Corollary 46). The flat norm in partial forms is considered as the supremum of the classical flat norm on each finite-dimensional affine subspace, therefore sets of zero measure (like affine subspaces of proper dimension) can contribute to the flat norm. The above leads to a subtle point: as a consequence of the main result and Wolfe's theorem, we know that, in the finite-dimensional case, the spaces of flat partial differential forms and classical flat differential forms must be isometric (via their isometric isomorphisms to the space of flat cochains). But the author manages to convince us that, without further considerations, they have different norms and equivalence classes (p. 514). This point is not discussed deeply in the paper and it should enlighten the concept of flat partial differential forms. The final sections are focused on the proof of the main theorem as well as other interesting properties of the space of flat partial forms, we especially note that the natural action of a flat partial form on simplexes agrees with the integration respect to Adams' mass measure. Observe that the space of flat partial forms is a graded algebra under the wedge product.