Smooth approximation for intrinsic Lipschitz functions in the Heisenberg group (Q2445465)

The authors study some properties of Lipschitz continuous functions defined, mainly, on the Heisenberg group. They characterize intrinsic Lipschitz functions as maps which can be approximated by a sequence of smooth maps, with pointwise convergent intrinsic gradients. The authors provide an estimate of the Lipschitz constant of an intrinsic Lipschitz function in terms of the \(L^\infty\)-norm of its intrinsic gradient. A function \(\phi: \omega \to \mathbb{R}\), where \(\omega \subset W=\mathbb{R}^{2n}\), is an (intrinsic) Lipschitz continuous function in \(\omega\) if there is a constant \(L>0\) such that \(|\phi(x)-\phi(y)|\leq L d_\phi(x,y)\) where \(d_\phi(x,y)\) is the graph distance between \(x,y\in \omega\), defined appropriately. After recalling the main properties of Lipschitz functions proved in [\textit{B. Franchi} et al., J. Geom. Anal. 21, No. 4, 1044--1084 (2011; Zbl 1234.22002)], the authors obtain some results on the equivalence of the graph distance \(d_\phi\) to the Carnot Carathéodory distance, an area formula for the spherical Hausdorff \((2n+1)\)-measure of the intrinsic graph of a Lipschitz function in terms of its \(\nabla^\phi\)-gradient. The main result of the paper is an approximation theorem for Lipschitz functions (Theorem 1.7).