We characterize the couples $(s,p)$ with the following property: if $u$ is a complex-valued unimodular map in $W^{s,p}$, then $u$ has (locally) a phase in $W^{s,p}$.
@article{hal-00747691,
author = {Bourgain, Jean and Brezis, Ha\"\i m and Mironescu, Petru},
title = {Lifting in Sobolev spaces},
journal = {HAL},
volume = {2000},
number = {0},
year = {2000},
language = {en},
url = {http://dml.mathdoc.fr/item/hal-00747691}
}
Bourgain, Jean; Brezis, Haïm; Mironescu, Petru. Lifting in Sobolev spaces. HAL, Tome 2000 (2000) no. 0, . http://gdmltest.u-ga.fr/item/hal-00747691/