On Kakeya-Nikodym type maximal inequalities

Abstract

We show that for any dimension $d\ge3$, one can obtain Wolff's $L^{(d+2)/2}$ bound on Kakeya-Nikodym maximal function in $\mathbb R^d$ for $d\ge3$ without the induction on scales argument. The key ingredient is to reduce to a 2-dimensional $L^2$ estimate with an auxiliary maximal function. We also prove that the same $L^{(d+2)/2}$ bound holds for Nikodym maximal function for any manifold $(M^d,g)$ with constant curvature, which generalizes Sogge's results for $d=3$ to any $d\ge3$. As in the 3-dimensional case, we can handle manifolds of constant curvature due to the fact that, in this case, two intersecting geodesics uniquely determine a 2-dimensional totally geodesic submanifold, which allows the use of the auxiliary maximal function.