Lipschitz homotopy groups of the Heisenberg groups (Q2453455)

Let \(X\) be a sub-Riemannian manifold and \({\pi }^ H _k (X)\) the smooth horizontal groups and \({\pi }^ {Lip} _k (X)\) the Lipschitz homotopy groups. This paper answers two questions posed in [\textit{N. Dejarnette} et al., ``On the lack of density of Lipschitz mappings in Sobolev spaces with Heisenberg target'', Conform. Geom. Dyn. 18, 119--156 (2014; Zbl 1316.46034)] in the negative (see Theorems 1 and 2). The authors show that the Lipschitz and smooth horizontal homotopy groups of a space may differ. Conversely, they show that any Lipschitz map \(S^k \to H^1\), \(\mathit{H}^ 1\) the Heisenberg group, factors through a tree and is thus Lipschitz null-homotopic if \(k\geq 2\) (see Theorems 3 and 5).