Failure of the Flat Chain Conjecture and non-regularity of the prescribed Jacobian equation

Abstract: We show that the Flat Chain Conjecture in Lang's formulation (that is, without requiring finite mass of the underlying currents) fails for metric $k$-currents in $\mathbb{R}^d$ whenever $d\geq 2$ and $k\in{1, \dots, d}$. In all other cases, it holds. We first connect the conjecture to a regularity statement concerning the prescribed Jacobian equation near $L^\infty$. We then show that the equation does not have the required regularity. For a Lipschitz vector field $\pi$, its derivative $\mathrm{D}\pi$ exists a.e. and is identified with a matrix. Our non-regularity results for the prescribed Jacobian equation quantify how "small" the set \begin{equation*} \operatorname{conv}({\operatorname{det}\mathrm{D} \pi: \operatorname{Lip}(\pi)\leq L})\subset L^\infty \end{equation*} is for every $L>0$. The symbol "$\operatorname{conv}$" stands for the convex hull. The "smallness" is quantified in topological terms and is used to show that the Flat Chain Conjecture fails.