Weak Hodge Theorem on Piecewise-Algebraic Spaces

Abstract

We prove a weak version of the classical Hodge theorem on piecewise-algebraic spaces, a class of spaces introduced by Kontsevich and Soibelman in [KS00]. Precisely, we first prove the Poincare lemma that computes singular cohomology as a variant of de Rham cohomology. Then, as a weak Hodge theorem, we naturally embed the singular cohomology into the space of harmonic forms, instead of establishing an isomorphism (which does not hold for those spaces). Our approach in the latter is classical: Sobolev space theory. In addition, we give more detailed proofs for the claims in the appendix to [KS00]. This work is part of a program of extending arithmetic intersection theory to singular spaces. In particular, a type of currents in this singular setup is introduced.