Codimension one minimal cycles with coefficients inZ orZ p , and variational functionals on fibered spaces

Given a compact, oriented Riemannian manifold M, without boundary, and a codimension-one homology class in H_* (M, Z) (or, respectively, in H_* (M, Z_p) with p an odd prime), we consider the problem of finding a cycle of least area in the given class: this is known as the homological Plateau’s problem. We propose an elliptic regularization of this problem, by constructing suitable fiber bundles ξ (resp. ζ) on M, and one-parameter families of functionals defined on the regular sections of ξ, (resp. ζ), depending on a small parameter ε. As ε → 0, the minimizers of these functionals are shown to converge to some limiting section, whose discontinuity set is exactly the minimal cycle desired.