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The Besicovitch covering property (BCP) is known to be one of the fundamental tools in measure theory, and more generally, a usefull property for numerous purposes in analysis and geometry. We prove both sufficient and necessary criteria for the validity of BCP in the first Heisenberg group equipped with a homogeneous distance. Beyond recovering all previously known results about the validity or non validity of BCP in this setting, we get simple descriptions of new large classes of homogeneous distances satisfying BCP. We also obtain a full characterization of rotationally invariant distances for which BCP holds in the first Heisenberg group under mild regularity assumptions about their unit sphere., Comment: 34 pages, 2 figures, to appear on J. Geom. Anal., suggestions of the referee addressed

The Besicovitch covering property (BCP) is known to be one of the fundamental tools in measure theory, and more generally, a usefull property for numerous purposes in analysis and geometry. We prove both sufficient and necessary criteria for the validity of BCP in the first Heisenberg group equipped with a homogeneous distance. Beyond recovering all previously known results about the validity or non validity of BCP in this setting, we get simple descriptions of new large classes of homogeneous distances satisfying BCP. We also obtain a full characterization of rotationally invariant distances for which BCP holds in the first Heisenberg group under mild regularity assumptions about their unit sphere., 34 pages, 2 figures, to appear on J. Geom. Anal., suggestions of the referee addressed

A Carnot group $\mathbb{G}$ admits Lusin approximation for horizontal curves if for any absolutely continuous horizontal curve $\gamma$ in $\mathbb{G}$ and $\varepsilon>0$, there is a $C^1$ horizontal curve $\Gamma$ such that $\Gamma=\gamma$ and $\Gamma'=\gamma'$ outside a set of measure at most $\varepsilon$. We verify this property for free Carnot groups of step 2 and show that it is preserved by images of Lie group homomorphisms preserving the horizontal layer. Consequently, all step 2 Carnot groups admit Lusin approximation for horizontal curves., Comment: 25 pages

We give a complete answer to which homogeneous groups admit homogeneous distances for which the Besicovitch Covering Property (BCP) holds. In particular, we prove that a stratified group admits homogeneous distances for which BCP holds if and only if the group has step 1 or 2. These results are obtained as consequences of a more general study of homogeneous quasi-distances on graded groups. Namely, we prove that a positively graded group admits continuous homogeneous quasi-distances satisfying BCP if and only if any two different layers of the associated positive grading of its Lie algebra commute. The validity of BCP has several consequences. Its connections with the theory of differentiation of measures is one of the main motivations of the present paper. As a consequence of our results, we get for instance that a stratified group can be equipped with some homogeneous distance so that the differentiation theorem holds for each locally finite Borel measure if and only if the group has step 1 or 2. The techniques developed in this paper allow also us to prove that sub-Riemannian distances on stratified groups of step 2 or higher never satisfy BCP. Using blow-up techniques this is shown to imply that on a sub-Riemannian manifold the differentiation theorem does not hold for some locally finite Borel measure., 57 pages

We prove that the Besicovitch Covering Property (BCP) does not hold for some classes of homogeneous quasi-distances on Carnot groups of step 3 and higher. As a special case we get that, in Carnot groups of step 3 and higher, BCP is not satisfied for those homogeneous distances whose unit ball centered at the origin coincides with a Euclidean ball centered at the origin. This result comes in constrast with the case of the Heisenberg groups where such distances satisfy BCP.

Our main result is a positive answer to the question whether one can find homogeneous distances on the Heisenberg groups that have the Besicovitch Covering Property (BCP). This property is well known to be one of the fundamental tools of measure theory, with strong connections with the theory of differentiation of measures. We prove that BCP is satisfied by the homogeneous distances whose unit ball centered at the origin coincides with an Euclidean ball. Such homogeneous distances do exist on any Carnot group by a result of Hebisch and Sikora. In the Heisenberg groups, they are related to the Cygan-Koranyi (also called Koranyi) distance. They were considered in particular by Lee and Naor to provide a counterexample to the Goemans-Linial conjecture in theoretical computer science. To put our result in perspective, we also prove two geometric criteria that imply the non-validity of BCP, showing that in some sense our example is sharp. Our first criterion applies in particular to commonly used homogeneous distances on the Heisenberg groups, such as the Cygan-Koranyi and Carnot-Caratheodory distances that are already known not to satisfy BCP. To put a different perspective on these results and for sake of completeness, we also give a proof of the fact, noticed by D. Preiss, that in a general metric space, one can always construct a bi-Lipschitz equivalent distance that does not satisfy BCP.