Sets with constant normal in Carnot groups: properties and examples (Q2030902)

The study of sub-Riemannian geometry has been an active field over the past five decades. The authors analyze subsets of Carnot groups that have intrinsic constant normal, as they appear in the blowup study of sets that have finite sub-Riemannian perimeter. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, the authors prove some mild regularity and structural results in arbitrary Carnot groups. Namely, the paper shows that for every constant-normal set in a Carnot group its sub-Riemannian-Lebesgue representative is regularly open, contractible, and its topological boundary coincides with the reduced boundary and with the measure-theoretic boundary. The authors infer these properties from a metric cone property. Such a cone will be a semisubgroup with nonempty interior that is canonically associated with the normal direction. The present paper characterizes the constant-normal sets exactly as those that are arbitrary unions of translations of such semisubgroups. Second, making use of such a characterization, the paper provides some pathological examples in the specific case of the free-Carnot group of step 3 and rank 2. Namely, the paper constructs a constant normal set that, with respect to any Riemannian metric, is not of locally finite perimeter; this paper also constructs an example with non-unique intrinsic blowup at some point, showing that it has different upper and lower sub-Riemannian density at the origin. Third, the authors show that in Carnot groups of step 4 or less, every constant-normal set is intrinsically rectifiable, in the sense of Franchi, Serapioni, and Serra Cassano.