On the isoperimetric problem in the Heisenberg group Hn

Abstract

It has been recently conjectured that, in the context of the Heisenberg groupHn endowed with its Carnot–Carathéodory metric and Haar measure, the isoperimetricsets (i.e., minimizers of the H-perimeter among sets of constant Haar measure) couldcoincide with the solutions to a “restricted” isoperimetric problem within the class ofsets having finite perimeter, smooth boundary, and cylindrical symmetry. In this paper,we derive new properties of these restricted isoperimetric sets, which we call Heisenbergbubbles. In particular, we show that their boundary has constant mean H-curvature and, quitesurprisingly, that it is foliated by the family of minimal geodesics connecting two specialpoints. In view of a possible strategy for proving that Heisenberg bubbles are actuallyisoperimetric among the whole class of measurable subsets of Hn, we turn our attentionto the relationship between volume, perimeter, and -enlargements. In particular, we provea Brunn–Minkowski inequality with topological exponent as well as the fact that the Hperimeterof a bounded, open set F ⊂ Hn of class C2 can be computed via a generalizedMinkowski content, defined by means of any bounded set whose horizontal projection is the2n-dimensional unit disc. Some consequences of these properties are discussed