Let G be a connected perfect real Lie group. We show that there exists α < dim G and p ∈ $\mathbb{N}$ * such that if μ is a compactly supported α-Frostman Borel measure on G, then the pth convolution power μ*p is absolutely continuous with respect to the Haar measure on G, with arbitrarily smooth density. As an application, we obtain that if A ⊂ G is a Borel set with Hausdorff dimension at least α, then the p-fold product set Ap contains a non-empty open set.

A finitely generated subgroup ${\rm\Gamma}$ of a real Lie group $G$ is said to be Diophantine if there is ${\it\beta}>0$ such that non-trivial elements in the word ball $B_{{\rm\Gamma}}(n)$ centered at $1\in {\rm\Gamma}$ never approach the identity of $G$ closer than $|B_{{\rm\Gamma}}(n)|^{-{\it\beta}}$ . A Lie group $G$ is said to be Diophantine if for every $k\geqslant 1$ a random $k$ -tuple in $G$ generates a Diophantine subgroup. Semi-simple Lie groups are conjectured to be Diophantine but very little is proven in this direction. We give a characterization of Diophantine nilpotent Lie groups in terms of the ideal of laws of their Lie algebra. In particular we show that nilpotent Lie groups of class at most $5$ , or derived length at most $2$ , as well as rational nilpotent Lie groups are Diophantine. We also find that there are non-Diophantine nilpotent and solvable (non-nilpotent) Lie groups.

We construct dense Borel measurable subgroups of Lie groups of intermediate Hausdorff dimension. In particular, we generalize the Erdős–Volkmann construction [Additive Gruppen mit vorgegebener Hausdorffscher Dimension, J. Reine Angew. Math. 221 (1966), 203–208], showing that any nilpotent $\sigma $ -compact Lie group $N$ admits dense Borel subgroups of arbitrary dimension between zero and $\dim N$ . In algebraic groups defined over a finite extension of the rationals, using diophantine properties of algebraic numbers, we are also able to construct dense subgroups of arbitrary dimension, but the general case remains open. In particular, we raise the following question: does there exist a measurable proper subgroup of $ \mathbb{R} $ of positive Hausdorff dimension which is stable under multiplication by a transcendental number? Subgroups of nilpotent $p$ -adic analytic groups are also discussed.