A subelliptic Bourgain-Brezis inequality

Abstract

We prove an approximation lemma on (stratified) homogeneous groups that allows one to approximate a function in the non-isotropic Sobolev space $\dot{NL}^{1,Q}$ by $L^{\infty}$ functions, generalizing a result of Bourgain-Brezis \cite{MR2293957}. We then use this to obtain a Gagliardo-Nirenberg inequality for $\bar{\partial}_b$ on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^n$.