arXiv · 2205.09941
Smooth approximation of mappings with rank of the derivative at most $1$
Abstract
It was conjectured that if $f\in C^1(\mathbb{R}^n,\mathbb{R}^n)$ satisfies $\operatorname{rank} Df\leq m<n$ everywhere in $\mathbb{R}^n$, then $f$ can be uniformly approximated by $C^\infty$-mappings $g$ satisfying $\operatorname{rank} Dg\leq m$ everywhere. While in general, there are counterexamples to this conjecture, we prove that the answer is in the positive when $m=1$. More precisely, if $m=1$, our result yields an almost-uniform approximation of locally Lipschitz mappings $f:\Omega\to\mathbb{R}^n$, satisfying $\operatorname{rank} Df\leq 1$ a.e., by $C^\infty$-mappings $g$ with $\operatorname{rank} Dg\leq 1$, provided $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ is simply connected. The construction of the approximation employs techniques of analysis on metric spaces, including the theory of metric trees ($\mathbb{R}$-trees).
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Paweł Goldstein, Piotr Hajłasz. 2022-05-20. Smooth approximation of mappings with rank of the derivative at most $1$. https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.09941
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