Yet another proof of the density in energy of Lipschitz functions

Abstract

We provide a new, short proof of the density in energy of Lipschitz functions into the metric Sobolev space defined by using plans with barycenter (and thus, a fortiori, into the Newtonian–Sobolev space). Our result covers first-order Sobolev spaces of exponent $$p\in (1,\infty )$$ p ∈ ( 1 , ∞ ) , defined over a complete separable metric space endowed with a boundedly-finite Borel measure. Our proof is based on a completely smooth analysis: first we reduce the problem to the Banach space setting, where we consider smooth functions instead of Lipschitz ones, then we rely on classical tools in convex analysis and on the superposition principle for normal 1-currents. Along the way, we obtain a new proof of the density in energy of smooth cylindrical functions in Sobolev spaces defined over a separable Banach space endowed with a finite Borel measure.