Kakeya configurations in Lie groups and homogeneous spaces (Q484269)

The authors want to classify continous Kakeya line configurations in \(\mathbb R^n\) and in connected Lie groups which are covered by their one-parameter subgroups. Intuitively, in \(\mathbb R^n\) a Kakeya line configuration is a set where it is possible to move a line continously such that during the motion every parallel class of lines is used exactly ones. In conected Lie groups, one has to replace the lines by the cosets of one-parameter subgroups. The authors prove that the only continous unoriented Kakeya line set in \(\mathbb R^n\) is \(\mathbb R^n\) itself. Moreover, they show under some general assumptions that any continous Kakeya line configuration set in a connected Lie group must contain an open neighborhood of the identity, and hence must have positive Haar measure. In connected nilpotent Lie groups \(G\), the only subspace of \(G\) that contains such an unoriented line configuration is shown to be \(G\) itself. In homogeneous spaces \(K\backslash G\), where \(G\) is a connected Lie group and \(K\) a closed subgroup, continous Kakeya line configurations are related to to liftings from \(K\backslash G\) to \(G\).