Minimality in topological groups and Heisenberg type groups

Abstract

We study relatively minimal subgroups in topological groups. We find, in particular, some natural relatively minimal subgroups in unipotent groups which are defined over "good" rings. By "good" rings we mean archimedean absolute valued (not necessarily associative) division rings. Some of the classical rings which we consider besides the field of reals are the ring of quaternions and the ring of octonions. This way we generalize in part a previous result which was obtained by Dikranjan and Megrelishvili and involved the Heisenberg group.