Search

We consider the dimensions of a family of self-affine sets related to the Bedford-McMullen carpets. In particular, we fix a Bedford-McMullen system and then randomise the translation vectors with the stipulation that the column structure is preserved. As such, we maintain one of the key features in the Bedford-McMullen set up in that alignment causes the dimensions to drop from the affinity dimension. We compute the Hausdorff, packing and box dimensions outside of a small set of exceptional translations, and also for some explicit translations even in the presence of overlapping. Our results rely on, and can be seen as a partial extension of, M. Hochman's recent work on the dimensions of self-similar sets and measures., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Ergodic Th. Dynam. Syst

We employ the ergodic theoretic machinery of scenery flows to address classical geometric measure theoretic problems on Euclidean spaces. Our main results include a sharp version of the conical density theorem, which we show to be closely linked to rectifiability. Moreover, we show that the dimension theory of measure-theoretical porosity can be reduced back to its set-theoretic version, that Hausdorff and packing dimensions yield the same maximal dimension for porous and even mean porous measures, and that extremal measures exist and can be chosen to satisfy a generalized notion of self-similarity. These are sharp general formulations of phenomena that had been earlier found to hold in a number of special cases., Comment: v3: 30 pages, 2 figures, fixed typos and minor errors, to appear in Proc. London Math. Soc

We expand the ergodic theory developed by Furstenberg and Hochman on dynamical systems that are obtained from magnifications of measures. We prove that any fractal distribution in the sense of Hochman is generated by a uniformly scaling measure, which provides a converse to a regularity theorem on the structure of distributions generated by the scenery flow. We further show that the collection of fractal distributions is closed under the weak topology and, moreover, is a Poulsen simplex, that is, extremal points are dense. We apply these to show that a Baire generic measure is as far as possible from being uniformly scaling: at almost all points, it has all fractal distributions as tangent distributions., Comment: v2: 28 pages, 2 figures, fixed typos and minor errors, to appear in J. London Math. Soc

The pressure function $P(A, s)$ plays a fundamental role in the calculation of the dimension of "typical" self-affine sets, where $A=(A_1,\ldots, A_k)$ is the family of linear mappings in the corresponding generating iterated function system. We prove that this function depends continuously on $A$. As a consequence, we show that the dimension of "typical" self-affine sets is a continuous function of the defining maps. This resolves a folklore open problem in the community of fractal geometry. Furthermore we extend the continuity result to more general sub-additive pressure functions generated by the norm of matrix products or generalized singular value functions for matrix cocycles, and obtain applications on the continuity of equilibrium measures and the Lyapunov spectrum of matrix cocycles., Comment: 24 pages. v2: minor improvements, incorporates referee suggestions

The affinity dimension is a number associated to an iterated function system of affine maps, which is fundamental in the study of the fractal dimensions of self-affine sets. De-Jun Feng and the author recently solved a folklore open problem, by proving that the affinity dimension is a continuous function of the defining maps. The proof also yields the continuity of a topological pressure arising in the study of random matrix products. I survey the definition, motivation and main properties of the affinity dimension and the associated SVF topological pressure, and give a proof of their continuity in the special case of ambient dimension two., Comment: 15 pages, no figures

We prove that the set of exceptional $\lambda\in (1/2,1)$ such that the associated Bernoulli convolution is singular has zero Hausdorff dimension, and likewise for biased Bernoulli convolutions, with the exceptional set independent of the bias. This improves previous results by Erd\"os, Kahane, Solomyak, Peres and Schlag, and Hochman. A theorem of this kind is also obtained for convolutions of homogeneous self-similar measures. The proofs are very short, and rely on old and new results on the dimensions of self-similar measures and their convolutions, and the decay of their Fourier transform., Comment: To appear in GAFA. 13 pages

We give a fractal-geometric condition for a measure on [0,1] to be supported on points x that are normal in base n, i.e. such that the sequence x,nx,n^2 x,... equidistributes modulo 1. This condition is robust under C^1 coordinate changes, and it applies also when n is a Pisot number and equidistribution is understood with respect to the beta-map and Parry measure. As applications we obtain new results (and strengthen old ones) about the prevalence of normal numbers in fractal sets, and new results on measure rigidity, specifically completing Host's theorem to multiplicatively independent integers and proving a Rudolph-Johnson-type theorem for certain pairs of beta transformations., Comment: 46 pages. v3: minor corrections and elaborations

Besicovitch showed that if a set is null for the Hausdorff measure associated to a given dimension function, then it is still null for the Hausdorff measure corresponding to a smaller dimension function. We prove that this is not true for packing measures. Moreover, we consider the corresponding questions for sets of non-$\sigma$-finite packing measure, and for pre-packing measure instead of packing measure., Comment: 10 pages, no figures

We show that in $\mathbb{R}^d$ there are purely unrectifiable sets of Hausdorff (and even box counting) dimension $d-1$ which are not tube null, settling a question of Carbery, Soria and Vargas, and improving a number of results by the same authors and by Carbery. Our method extends also to "convex tube null sets", establishing a contrast with a theorem of Alberti, Cs\"{o}rnyei and Preiss on Lipschitz-null sets. The sets we construct are random, and the proofs depend on intersection properties of certain random fractal measures with curves., Comment: 24 pages. Referees comments incorporated. JLMS to appear

We present a general approach to the study of the local distribution of measures on Euclidean spaces, based on local entropy averages. As concrete applications, we unify, generalize, and simplify a number of recent results on local homogeneity, porosity and conical densities of measures., Comment: v2: 23 pages, 6 figures. Updated references. Accepted to J. London Math. Soc

Porosity and dimension are two useful, but different, concepts that quantify the size of fractal sets and measures. An active area of research concerns understanding the relationship between these two concepts. In this article we will survey the various notions of porosity of sets and measures that have been proposed, and how they relate to dimension. Along the way, we will introduce the idea of local entropy averages, which arose in a different context, and was then applied to obtain a bound for the dimension of mean porous measures., Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure

Let $\nu_\lambda^p$ be the distribution of the random series $\sum_{n=1}^\infty i_n \lambda^n$, where $i_n$ is a sequence of i.i.d. random variables taking the values 0,1 with probabilities $p,1-p$. These measures are the well-known (biased) Bernoulli convolutions. In this paper we study the multifractal spectrum of $\nu_\lambda^p$ for typical $\lambda$. Namely, we investigate the size of the sets \[ \Delta_{\lambda,p}(\alpha) = \left\{x\in\R: \lim_{r\searrow 0} \frac{\log \nu_\lambda^p(B(x,r))}{\log r} =\alpha\right\}. \] Our main results highlight the fact that for almost all, and in some cases all, $\lambda$ in an appropriate range, $\Delta_{\lambda,p}(\alpha)$ is nonempty and, moreover, has positive Hausdorff dimension, for many values of $\alpha$. This happens even in parameter regions for which $\nu_\lambda^p$ is typically absolutely continuous., Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures

Using probabilistic ideas, we prove that the packing dimension of a mean porous measure is strictly smaller than the dimension of the ambient space. Moreover, we give an explicit bound for the packing dimension, which is asymptotically sharp in the case of small porosity. This result was stated in [D. B. Beliaev and S. K. Smirnov, "On dimension of porous measures", Math. Ann. 323 (2002) 123-141], but the proof given there is not correct. We also give estimates on the dimension of weakly mean porous measures, which improve another result of Beliaev and Smirnov., Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures

We show that for families of measures on Euclidean space which satisfy an ergodic-theoretic form of "self-similarity" under the operation of re-scaling, the dimension of linear images of the measure behaves in a semi-continuous way. We apply this to prove the following conjecture of Furstenberg: Let m,n be integers which are not powers of the same integer, and let X,Y be closed subsets of the unit interval which are invariant, respectively, under times-m mod 1 and times-n mod 1. Then, for any non-zero t: dim(X+tY)=min{1,dim(X)+dim(Y)}. A similar result holds for invariant measures, and gives a simple proof of the Rudolph-Johnson theorem. Our methods also apply to many other classes of conformal fractals and measures. As another application, we extend and unify Results of Peres, Shmerkin and Nazarov, and of Moreira, concerning projections of products self-similar measures and Gibbs measures on regular Cantor sets. We show that under natural irreducibility assumptions on the maps in the IFS, the image measure has the maximal possible dimension under any linear projection other than the coordinate projections. We also present applications to Bernoulli convolutions and to the images of fractal measures under differentiable maps., Comment: 55 pages. Version 2: Corrected an error in proof Thm. 4.3; some new references; various small corrections

Let A be a subset of the real line. We study the fractal dimensions of the k-fold iterated sumsets kA, defined as kA = A+...+A (k times). We show that for any non-decreasing sequence {a_k} taking values in [0,1], there exists a compact set A such that kA has Hausdorff dimension a_k for all k. We also show how to control various kinds of dimension simultaneously for families of iterated sumsets. These results are in stark contrast to the Plunnecke-Rusza inequalities in additive combinatorics. However, for lower box-counting dimension, the analogue of the Plunnecke-Rusza inequalities does hold., Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the Conference on Fractals and Related Fields, Monastir, 2007

Denote by $\mu_a$ the distribution of the random sum $(1-a) \sum_{j=0}^\infty \omega_j a^j$, where $P(\omega_j=0)=P(\omega_j=1)=1/2$ and all the choices are independent. For $01$ and $\log (1/3) /\log (1/4)$ is irrational.

We study the orthogonal projections of a large class of self-affine carpets, which contains the carpets of Bedford and McMullen as special cases. Our main result is that if $\Lambda$ is such a carpet, and certain natural irrationality conditions hold, then every orthogonal projection of $\Lambda$ in a non-principal direction has Hausdorff dimension $\min(\gamma,1)$, where $\gamma$ is the Hausdorff dimension of $\Lambda$. This generalizes a recent result of Peres and Shmerkin on sums of Cantor sets., Comment: 20 pages. Some minor errors have been corrected and a few points have been clarified

We present a complete proof of a theorem of C.G. Moreira. Under mild checkable conditions, the theorem asserts that the Hausdorff dimension of the arithmetic sum of two dynamically defined Cantor subsets of the real line, equals either the sum of the dimensions or 1, whichever is smaller., Comment: 15 pages. Expository notes, will not be submitted

We compute the Minkowski dimension for a family of self-affine sets on the plane. Our result holds for every (rather than generic) set in the class. Moreover, we exhibit explicit open subsets of this class where we allow overlapping, and do not impose any conditions on the norms of the linear maps. The family under consideration was inspired by the theory of Kakeya sets., Comment: 27 pages, 1 figure. Submitted October 2007

Let $C_a$ be the central Cantor set obtained by removing a central interval of length $1-2a$ from the unit interval, and continuing this process inductively on each of the remaining two intervals. We prove that if $\log b/\log a$ is irrational, then \[ \dim(C_a+C_b) = \min(\dim(C_a) + \dim(C_b),1), \] where $\dim$ is Hausdorff dimension. More generally, given two self-similar sets $K,K'$ in $\RR$ and a scaling parameter $s>0$, if the dimension of the arithmetic sum $K+sK'$ is strictly smaller than $\dim(K)+\dim(K') \le 1$ (``geometric resonance''), then there exists $r<1$ such that all contraction ratios of the similitudes defining $K$ and $K'$ are powers of $r$ (``algebraic resonance''). Our method also yields a new result on the projections of planar self-similar sets generated by an iterated function system that includes a scaled irrational rotation., Comment: To appear in Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems. 24 pages, 2 figures

We study families of possibly overlapping self-affine sets. Our main example is a family that can be considered the self-affine version of Bernoulli convolutions and was studied, in the non-overlapping case, by F.Przytycki and M.Urbanski. We extend their results to the overlapping region and also consider some extensions and generalizations., Comment: 36 pages, 2 figures

The multifractal spectrum of a Borel measure $\mu$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is defined as \[ f_\mu(\alpha) = \dim_H {x:\lim_{r\to 0} \frac{\log \mu(B(x,r))}{\log r}=\alpha}. \] For self-similar measures under the open set condition the behavior of this and related functions is well-understood; the situation turns out to be very regular and is governed by the so-called ''multifractal formalism''. Recently there has been a lot of interest in understanding how much of the theory carries over to the overlapping case; however, much less is known in this case and what is known makes it clear that more complicated phenomena are possible. Here we carry out a complete study of the multifractal structure for a class of self-similar measures with overlap which includes the 3-fold convolution of the Cantor measure. Among other things, we prove that the multifractal formalism fails for many of these measures, but it holds when taking a suitable restriction.