Topological singularities in W S,P ( S N , S 1)

We are interested in the location of the singularities of maps u ∈ W ^s,p (S ^N , S ¹) when 1 ≤ sp and 1 < sp < 2. To this end, we consider the distributional Jacobian. We show that the range of this operator on W ^s,p (S ^N , S ¹) is the closure in W ^s−2,p ⋂ W ^−1,sp of the set of N − 2-currents defined as the integration on smooth oriented N − 2-dimensional boundaryless submanifolds.