Calculus of Variations and Geometric Measure Theory

V. Franceschi - D. Prandi

Hardy-type inequalities for the Carnot-Carathéodory distance in the Heisenberg group

created by franceschi on 21 Mar 2019
modified on 04 Mar 2020

[BibTeX]

Published Paper

Inserted: 21 mar 2019
Last Updated: 4 mar 2020

Journal: Journal of Geometric Analysis
Year: 2020

ArXiv: 1903.08486 PDF

Abstract:

In this paper we study various Hardy inequalities in the Heisenberg group $\mathbb H^n$, w.r.t. the Carnot-Carathéodory distance $\delta$ from the origin. We firstly show that the optimal constant for the Hardy inequality is strictly smaller than $n^2 = (Q-2)^2/4$, where $Q$ is the homogenous dimension. Then, we prove that, independently of $n$, the Heisenberg group does not support a radial Hardy inequality, i.e., a Hardy inequality where the gradient term is replaced by its projection along $\nabla_{\mathbb H}\delta$. This is in stark contrast with the Euclidean case, where the radial Hardy inequality is equivalent to the standard one, and has the same constant. Motivated by these results, we consider Hardy inequalities for non-radial directions, i.e., directions tangent to the Carnot-Carathéodory balls. In particular, we show that the associated constant is bounded on homogeneous cones $C_\Sigma$ with base $\Sigma\subset \S^{2n}$, even when $\Sigma$ degenerates to a point. This is a genuinely sub-Riemannian behavior, as such constant is well-known to explode for homogeneous cones in the Euclidean space.


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