Intersecting well approximable and missing digit sets

Abstract

Let $b\geq3$ be an integer and $C(b,D)$ be the set of real numbers in $[0,1]$ whose $b$-ary expansion consists of digits restricted to a given set $D\subseteq\{0,\ldots,b-1\}$. Given an integer $t\geq2$ and a real, positive function $\psi$, let $W_{t}(\psi)$ denote the set of $x$ in $[0,1]$ for which $|x-p/t^{n}|<\psi(n)$ for infinitely many $(p,n)\in\mathbb{Z}\times\mathbb{N}$. We prove a general Hausdorff dimension result concerning the intersection of $W_{t}(\psi)$ with an arbitrary self similar set which implies that $\dim_{\rm H}(W_{t}(\psi)\cap C(b,D))\le\dim_{\rm H}W_{t}(\psi)\times \dim_{\rm H}C(b,D)$. When $b$ and $t$ have the same prime divisors, under certain restrictions on the digit set $D$, we give a sufficient condition for the Hausdorff measure of $W_{t}(\psi)\cap C(b,D)$ to be zero. This closes a gap in a result of Li, Li and Wu \cite{LLW2025} and shows that the dimension of the intersection can be strictly less than the product of the dimensions. The latter disproves the product conjecture of Li, Li and Wu.