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.

In this paper we prove a new version of the Cowling-Price theorem for Fourier transforms on Rn. Using this we formulate and prove an uncertainty principle for operators. This leads to an analogue of the Cowling-Price theorem for nilpotent Lie groups. We also prove an exact analogue of the Cowling-Price theorem for the Heisenberg group.