Frobenius theorem and fine structure of tangency sets to non-involutive distributions

Abstract

In this paper we provide a complete answer to the question whether Frobenius' Theorem can be generalized to surfaces below the $C^{1,1}$ threshold. We study the fine structure of the tangency set in terms of involutivity of a given distribution and we highlight a tradeoff behavior between the regularity of a tangent surface and that of the tangency set. First of all, we prove a Frobenius-type result, that is, given a $k$-dimensional surface $S$ of class $C^1$ and a non-involutive $k$-distribution $V$, if $E$ is a Borel set contained in the tangency set $\tau(S,V)$ of $S$ to $V$ and $\mathbb1_E\in W^{s,1}(S)$ with $s>1/2$ then $E$ must be $\mathscr{H}^k$-null in $S$. In addition, if $S$ is locally a graph of a $C^1$ function with gradient in $W^{\alpha,q}$ and if a Borel set $E \subset \tau(S,V)$ satisfies $ \mathbb1_E\in W^{s,1}(S)$ with \[ s \in \bigl(0,\tfrac{1}{2}\bigr]\qquad\text{and}\qquad\alpha \;>\; 1 - \Bigl(2 - \tfrac{1}{q}\Bigr) \, s, \] then $\mathscr{H}^k(E) = 0$. We show this exponents' condition to be sharp by constructing, for any $\alpha < 1 - \bigl(2 - \tfrac{1}{q}\bigr) s$, a surface $S $ in the same class as above and a set $E \subset \tau(S,V)$ with $\mathbb1_E \in W^{s,1}(S)$ and $\mathscr{H}^k(E) > 0$. Our methods combine refined fractional Sobolev estimates on rectifiable sets, a Stokes-type theorem for rough forms on finite-perimeter sets, and a generalization of the Lusin's Theorem for gradients.