Cycle decompositions: from graphs to continua (Q655366)

\textit{R. Diestel} and \textit{D. Kühn} [``On infinite cycles. I, II.'' Combinatorica 24, No.\,1, 68--89, 91--116 (2004; Zbl 1063.05076)] showed that many well-known theorems about cycles in finite graphs remain true for infinite graphs provided one replaces the classical graph-theoretical concepts by topological analogues. For example, instead of graph cycles one uses topological circles. This paper is motivated by an attempt to generalize some of these graph-theoretical facts to continuous objects. In this paper, the author generalizes a fundamental graph-theoretical fact, stating that every element of the cycle space of a graph is a sum of edge-disjoint cycles, to arbitrary continua. To achieve this the author replaces graph cycles by a quotient of the first singular homology group \(H_1\). This homology seems to be particularly apt for studying spaces with infinitely generated \(H_1\), e.g., infinite graphs or fractals.