Non-closed Lie subgroups of Lie groups

We obtain several homotopy obstructions to the existence of non-closed connected Lie subgroupsH in a connected Lie groupG.First we show that the foliationF(G, H) onG determined byH is transversely complete 4]; moreover, forK the closure ofH inG, F(K, H) is an abelian Lie foliation 2].Then we prove that ₁(K) and ₁(H) have the same torsion subgroup, _n (K)= _n (H) for alln 2, and rank₁(K) — rank₁(H) > codimF(K, H). This implies, for instance, that a contractible (e.g. simply connected solvable) Lie subgroup of a compact Lie group must be abelian. Also, if rank₁(G) 1 then any connected invariant Lie subgroup ofG is closed; this generalizes a well-known theorem of Mal'cev 3] for simply connected Lie groups.Finally, we show that the results of Van Est on (CA) Lie groups 6], 7] provide many interesting examples of such foliations. Actually, any Lie group with non-compact centre is the (dense) leaf of a foliation defined by a closed 1-form. Conversely, when the centre is compact, the latter is true only for (CA) Lie groups (e.g. nilpotent or semisimple).