Quantitative nonembeddability of groups of polynomial growth into uniformly convex spaces

Abstract

Nonabelian simply connected nilpotent Lie groups and not virtually abelian finitely generated groups of polynomial growth do not quasi-isometrically embed into uniformly convex Banach spaces. We quantify this fact by showing that a ball of radius $r\ge 2$ in the aforementioned groups must incur bilipschitz distortion at least a constant multiple of $(\log r)^{1/q}$ into a $q(\ge 2)$-uniformly convex Banach space. This bound is sharp for the $L^p$ ($1<p<\infty$) spaces. We prove this by establishing ``vertical versus horizontal inequalities'' for functions from the aforementioned groups into uniformly convex spaces, using the vector-valued Littlewood--Paley--Stein theory approach of Lafforgue and Naor (2012). These inequalities are quantitative nonembeddability statements that any Lipschitz mapping from the aforementioned groups into a uniformly convex space quantitatively collapses along certain central subgroups. In the special case of mappings of Carnot groups into the $L^p$ ($1<p<\infty$) spaces, we prove that the quantitative collapse occurs on the commutator subgroup; this is in line with the qualitative Pansu--Semmes nonembeddability argument given by Cheeger and Kleiner (2006) and Lee and Naor (2006). We prove this by establishing a version of the classical Dorronsoro theorem on Carnot groups. Previously, in the setting of Heisenberg groups, Fässler and Orponen (2019) established a one-sided Dorronsoro theorem with a restriction $0<α<2$ on the range of exponents $α$ of the Laplacian; this restriction does not appear in the commutative setting and is caused by their use of horizontal polynomials as approximants. We identify the correct class of approximant polynomials and prove the two-sided Dorronsoro theorem with the full range $0<α<\infty$ of exponents in the general setting of Carnot groups, thus strengthening and extending the work of Fässler and Orponen.