arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Pablo Shmerkin.
We prove that if $A$ is a Borel set in the plane of equal Hausdorff and packing dimension $s>1$, then the set of pinned distances $\{ |x-y|:y\in A\}$ has full Hausdorff dimension for all $x$ outside of a set of Hausdorff dimension $1$ (in particular, for many $x\in A$). This verifies a strong variant of Falconer's distance set conjecture for sets of equal Hausdorff and packing dimension, outside the endpoint $s=1$.
R. Kaufman and M. Tsujii proved that the Fourier transform of self-similar measures has a power decay outside of a sparse set of frequencies. We present a version of this result for homogeneous self-similar measures, with quantitative estimates, and derive several applications: (1) non-linear smooth images of homogeneous self-similar measures have a power Fourier decay, (2) convolving with a homogeneous self-similar measure increases correlation dimension by a quantitative amount, (3) the dimension and Frostman exponent of (biased) Bernoulli convolutions tend to $1$ as the contraction ratio tends to $1$, at an explicit quantitative rate.
We obtain box-counting estimates for the pinned distance sets of (dense subsets of) planar discrete Ahlfors-regular sets of exponent $s>1$. As a corollary, we improve upon a recent result of Orponen, by showing that if $A$ is Ahlfors-regular of dimension $s>1$, then almost all pinned distance sets of $A$ have lower box-counting dimension $1$. We also show that if $A,B\subset\mathbb{R}^2$ have Hausdorff dimension $>1$ and $A$ is Ahlfors-regular, then the set of distances between $A$ and $B$ has modified lower box-counting dimension $1$, which taking $B=A$ improves Orponen's result in a different direction, by lowering packing dimension to modified lower box-counting dimension. The proofs involve ergodic-theoretic ideas, relying on the theory of CP-processes and projections.
Under mild conditions we show that the affinity dimension of a planar self-affine set is equal to the supremum of the Lyapunov dimensions of self-affine measures supported on self-affine proper subsets of the original set. These self-affine subsets may be chosen so as to have stronger separation properties and in such a way that the linear parts of their affinities are positive matrices. Combining this result with some recent breakthroughs in the study of self-affine measures and their associated Furstenberg measures, we obtain new criteria under which the Hausdorff dimension of a self-affine set equals its affinity dimension. For example, applying recent results of Bárány, Hochman-Solomyak and Rapaport, we provide new explicit examples of self-affine sets whose Hausdorff dimension equals its affinity dimension, and for which the linear parts do not satisfy any domination assumptions.
We characterize the existence of certain geometric configurations in the fractal percolation limit set $A$ in terms of the almost sure dimension of $A$. Some examples of the configurations we study are: homothetic copies of finite sets, angles, distances, and volumes of simplices. In the spirit of relative Szemerédi theorems for random discrete sets, we also consider the corresponding problem for sets of positive $ν$-measure, where $ν$ is the natural measure on $A$. In both cases we identify the dimension threshold for each class of configurations. These results are obtained by investigating the intersections of the products of $m$ independent realizations of $A$ with transversal planes and, more generally, algebraic varieties, and extend some well known features of independent percolation on trees to a setting with long-range dependencies.
We survey some of our recent results on the geometry of spatially independent martingales, in a more concrete setting that allows for shorter, direct proofs, yet is general enough for several applications and contains the well-known fractal percolation measure. We study self-convolutions and Fourier decay of measures in our class, and present applications of these results to the restriction problem for fractal measures, and the connection between arithmetic structure and Fourier decay.
We construct Salem sets in $\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z}$ of any dimension (including $1$) which do not contain any arithmetic progressions of length $3$. Moreover, the sets can be taken to be Ahlfors regular if the dimension is less than $1$, and the measure witnessing the Fourier decay can be taken to be Frostman in the case of dimension $1$. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in the discrete setting (where Fourier uniformity is well known to imply existence of progressions), and helps clarify a result of Laba and Pramanik on pseudo-random subsets of the real line which do contain progressions.
We prove preservation of $L^q$ dimensions (for $1<q\le 2$) under all orthogonal projections for a class of random measures on the plane, which includes (deterministic) homogeneous self-similar measures and a well-known family of measures supported on $1$-variable fractals as special cases. We prove a similar result for certain convolutions, extending a result of Nazarov, Peres and Shmerkin. Recently many related results have been obtained for Hausdorff dimension, but much less is known for $L^q$ dimensions.
We prove that complex Bernoulli convolutions are absolutely continuous in the supercritical parameter region, outside of an exceptional set of parameters of zero Hausdorff dimension. Similar results are also obtained in the biased case, and for other parametrized families of self-similar sets and measures in the complex plane, extending earlier results.
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.
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.
We define a class of random measures, spatially independent martingales, which we view as a natural generalisation of the canonical random discrete set, and which includes as special cases many variants of fractal percolation and Poissonian cut-outs. We pair the random measures with deterministic families of parametrised measures $\{η_t\}_t$, and show that under some natural checkable conditions, a.s. the total measure of the intersections is Hölder continuous as a function of $t$. This continuity phenomenon turns out to underpin a large amount of geometric information about these measures, allowing us to unify and substantially generalize a large number of existing results on the geometry of random Cantor sets and measures, as well as obtaining many new ones. Among other things, for large classes of random fractals we establish (a) very strong versions of the Marstrand-Mattila projection and slicing results, as well as dimension conservation, (b) slicing results with respect to algebraic curves and self-similar sets, (c) smoothness of convolutions of measures, including self-convolutions, and nonempty interior for sumsets, (d) rapid Fourier decay. Among other applications, we obtain an answer to a question of I. Łaba in connection to the restriction problem for fractal measures.
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.
In recent years there has been much interest -and progress- in understanding projections of many concrete fractals sets and measures. The general goal is to be able to go beyond general results such as Marstrand's Theorem, and quantify the size of every projection - or at least every projection outside some very small set. This article surveys some of these results and the techniques that were developed to obtain them, focusing on linear projections of planar self-similar sets and measures.
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.
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, Csörnyei 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.
We study the relationship between the sizes of two sets $B, S\subset\mathbb{R}^2$ when $B$ contains either the whole boundary, or the four vertices, of a square with axes-parallel sides and center in every point of $S$, where size refers to one of cardinality, Hausdorff dimension, packing dimension, or upper or lower box dimension. Perhaps surprinsingly, the results vary depending on the notion of size under consideration. For example, we construct a compact set $B$ of Hausdorff dimension $1$ which contains the boundary of an axes-parallel square with center in every point $[0,1]^2$, but prove that such a $B$ must have packing and lower box dimension at least $\tfrac{7}{4}$, and show by example that this is sharp. For more general sets of centers, the answers for packing and box counting dimensions also differ. These problems are inspired by the analogous problems for circles that were investigated by Bourgain, Marstrand and Wolff, among others.
We show that in many parametrized families of self-similar measures, their projections, and their convolutions, the set of parameters for which the measure fails to be absolutely continuous is very small - of co-dimension at least one in parameter space. This complements an active line of research concerning similar questions for dimension. Moreover, we establish some regularity of the density outside this small exceptional set, which applies in particular to Bernoulli convolutions; along the way, we prove some new results about the dimensions of self-similar measures and the absolute continuity of the convolution of two measures. As a concrete application, we obtain a very strong version of Marstrand's projection theorem for planar self-similar sets.