Gagliardo-Nirenberg inequalities for differential forms in Heisenberg groups (Q303632)

The Gagliardo-Nirenberg inequality states that for compactly supported functions \(u\) on the Euclidean \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\), \[ \|u\|_{L^{n/(n-1)}(\mathbb{R}^{n})}\leq c\|\nabla u\|_{L^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{n})}. \] A generalization to differential forms in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) due to \textit{J. Bourgain} and \textit{H. Brezis} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 16, No. 2, 393--426 (2003; Zbl 1075.35006); C. R., Math., Acad. Sci. Paris 338, No. 7, 539--543 (2004; Zbl 1101.35013); J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 9, No. 2, 277--315 (2007; Zbl 1176.35061)] and \textit{L. Lanzani} and \textit{E. M. Stein} [Math. Res. Lett. 12, No. 1, 57--61 (2005; Zbl 1113.26015)] states that the \(L^{n/(n-1)}\)-norm of a compactly supported differential \(h\)-form is controlled by the \(L^{1}\)-norm of its exterior differential \(du\) and its exterior codifferential \(\delta u\). \textit{S. Chanillo} and \textit{J. Van Schaftingen} [Math. Res. Lett. 16, No. 2--3, 487--501 (2009; Zbl 1184.35119)] extended this inequality to a class of vector fields in Carnot groups. In this article the authors extend this type of results to Heisenberg groups. Based on works of Rumin, \(h\)-forms on Heisenberg groups are splitted into two spaces, one of which is \(E_{0}^{h}\) corresponding to ``horizontal derivatives''. A crucial result of the paper, roughly speaking, states that the components with respect to a given basis of closed forms in \(E_{0}^{h}\) are linear combinations of the components of a horizontal vector field with vanishing ``generalized horizontal divergence''.