Smoothness of Projections, Bernoulli Convolutions, and Dimensions Of
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SMOOTHNESS OF PROJECTIONS, BERNOULLI CONVOLUTIONS, AND THE DIMENSION OF EXCEPTIONS YUVAL PERES AND WILHELM SCHLAG n Abstract. Erd˝os (1939, 1940) studied the distribution ν of the random series ∞ λ ,andshowedthat λ 0 ± ν is singular for infinitely many λ (1/2, 1), and absolutely continuous for a.e. λ in a small interval λ ∈ P (1 δ, 1). Solomyak (1995) proved a conjecture made by Garsia (1962) that ν is absolutely continuous − λ for a.e. λ (1/2, 1). In order to sharpen this result, we have developed a general method that can be used ∈ to estimate the Hausdorffdimension of exceptional parameters in several contexts. In particular, we prove: For any λ0 > 1/2, the set of λ [λ0, 1) such that ν is singular has Hausdorffdimension strictly less than 1. • ∈ λ For any Borel set A d with Hausdorffdimension dim A>(d +1)/2, there are points x A such that • ⊂ R ∈ the pinned distance set x y : y A has positive Lebesgue measure. Moreover, the set of x where this {| − | ∈ } fails has Hausdorffdimension at most d +1 dim A. − Let denote the middle-α Cantor set for α =1 2λ and let K be any compact set. Peres and • Kλ − ⊂ R Solomyak (1998) showed that for a.e. λ (λ0, 1/2) such that dim K +dim > 1, the sum K + has ∈ Kλ Kλ positive length; we show that the set of exceptional λ in this statement has Hausdorffdimension at most 2 dim K dim . − − Kλ0 For any Borel set E d with dim E>2, almost all orthogonal projections of E onto lines through • ⊂ R the origin have nonempty interior, and the exceptional set of lines where this fails has dimension at most d +1 dim E. − d If µ is a Borel probability measure on R with correlation dimension greater than m +2γ,thenfora • 1 d m “prevalent” set of C maps f : R R (in the sense described by Hunt, Sauer and Yorke (1992)), the → 2 m image of µ under f has a density with at least γ fractional derivatives in L (R ). 1. Introduction n The distribution νλ of the random series 0∞ λ , where the signs are chosen independently with proba- 1 ± bility 2 , has been studied by many authors since the two seminal papers by Erd˝osin 1939 and 1940. It is 1 1 immediate that νλ is singular for λ< 2 . In [6], Erd˝osshowed that νλ is singular for infinitely many λ ( 2 , 1), 1 ∈ namely those λ such that λ− is a Pisot number, and in [7] he proved that νλ is absolutely continuous for a.e. λ (1 δ, 1) where δ<0.01. It had been observed before by Jessen and Wintner [21] that νλ is either absolutely∈ continuous− or singular with respect to Lebesgue measure for any choice of λ. Works of Alexander and Yorke [2], Przytycki and Urba´nski [37], and Ledrappier [27] showed the importance of these distributions in several problems in dynamical systems. Solomyak [39] proved a conjecture made by Garsia in 1962, that νλ 2 is absolutely continuous for a.e. λ (1/2, 1); in fact, he showed that νλ has density in L for a.e. λ (1/2, 1). Peres and Solomyak [34] then gave∈ a simpler proof of this. A survey of the results obtained on∈ Bernoulli convolutions from the 1930’s to 1999 is presented in [33]. 2 In the present paper, we show that the density of νλ has a fractional derivative in L for a.e. λ (1/2, 1), and obtain a bound on the integrated Sobolev norm. We then use this bound to establish that∈ for any closed interval I (1/2, 1], the set of λ I such that νλ is singular, has Hausdorffdimension less than 1 (Theorem 5.4 and⊂ Corollary 5.6). In order∈ to prove these results, we were led to develop a general method, which can be applied to improve previous results on Hausdorffdimensions of sums of Cantor sets, distance sets, 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 42B25; Secondary 28A78. Y. Peres was partly supported by NSF grant DMS–9404391. W. Schlag was supported by a NSF postdoctoral fellowship at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley. 1 2 YUVALPERESANDWILHELMSCHLAG and self-similar sets with deleted digits. (An exposition of our method for the case of Bernoulli convolutions is in [33]). Heuristically, the measures νλ may be viewed as nonlinear projections of the uniform measure on sequence space. Indeed, the analysis of νλ in [39] and [34] employed techniques developed by Kaufman [23] and Mattilla [30] to study orthogonal projections of sets and measures in Euclidean space. The following (informally stated) principles were first discovered by Marstrand [28], Kaufman [23, 24] and Mattila [29, 30] in the study of orthogonal projections, and then extended to a variety of other settings by Falconer [12], Hu and Taylor [16], Pollicott and Simon [36], Solomyak [39, 40, 41], Peres and Solomyak [34, 35] and Sauer and Yorke [38]. If an m dimensional measure is “projected” to m dimensional space, then “typically” its di- • mension− is preserved. If an m + dimensional measure is “projected” to m dimensional space, then “typically” the • projected measure is absolutely continuous, with a density in L2. In making these principles precise, the appropriate notion of dimension of measures must be used (Correlation or information dimension, but not Minkowski or packing dimension; see Jarvenp¨a¨a[20] and [38]), and the parametrized family of generalized projections considered must be sufficiently rich (at least m dimensional). A more delicate requirement is a certain “transversality condition” (e.g., Lemma 3.11 in [31]). For Bernoulli convolutions and other self-similar measures, this condition involves bounds on the double zeros of certain power series, and it was first made explicit by Pollicott and Simon [36]. Transversality is crucial in the works of Solomyak [39, 40, 41], Peres and Solomyak [34, 35], and in the present paper. The general principles that underly our work can be informally stated as follows: If an m dimensional measure µ is “projected” to an m dimensional space, then the set of • parameters− where the projection of µ has lower dimension than µ itself, has “codimension” at least . If an m + dimensional measure is “projected” to m dimensional space, then “typically” the • projected measure has a density with a fractional derivative of order /2inL2, and the set of parameters where the projected measure is singular has “codimension” at least . The notion of Sobolev dimension of a measure, defined in (2.3) below, yields a unification of these two princi- ples. For orthogonal projections, these strengthened principles have been stated precisely, and established as theorems, by Kaufman [24], Falconer [9] and Mattila [29], except that they did not consider fractional deriva- tives. Their proofs are based on averaging with respect to an appropriate Frostman measure on parameter space. In the setting of Bernoulli convolutions, this averaging approach is not powerful enough to establish the last principle, so we were forced to develop a different technique. Our methods apply to several concrete problems, which we now describe. Throughout the paper, dim (without subscripts) will mean Hausdorffdimension. Orthogonal projections. To motivate the general formulations, we start by clarifying the impor- • tant results of Falconer [9] on exceptional directions for projections in Rd (see Sections 2 and 6). As a corollary, we find that for any Borel set E Rd with dim E>2 and for a.e. direction θ in the d 1 ⊂ sphere S − , the orthogonal projection projθ(E) of E to the line through 0 and θ, has nonempty interior. More precisely (see corollary 6.2), d 1 dim θ S − :proj(E) has empty interior d +1 dim E. { ∈ θ }≤ − n Symmetric Bernoulli Convolutions. Let νλ be the distribution of the random series n∞=0 λ , • n ± so νλ has the Fourier transform νλ(ξ)= ∞ cos(λ ξ). Here we sharpen the result of Solomyak [39] n=0 that νλ is absolutely continuous for a.e. λ (1/2, 1), by showing that the 2,γ–Sobolev norm satisfies ∈ ∞ ν 2 = ν (ξ) 2 ξ 2γ dξ< λ2,γ | λ | | | ∞ −∞ SMOOTHNESS OF PROJECTIONS 3 for a.e. λ<0.649 such that λ1+2γ > 1/2. Moreover, for some constant C>0, and all small >0, we have dim λ (1/2+, 1) : ν is singular < 1 C. ∈ λ − p n Asymmetric Bernoulli Convolutions. Let νλ be the distribution of the sum n∞=0 λ • where the signs are chosen randomly and independently with probabilities (p, 1 p). Peres± and p p 1 p − p Solomyak [35] showed that ν is absolutely continuous for a.e. λ (p (1 p) − , 1), but ν has a λ ∈ − λ density in L2 for a.e. λ (p2 +(1 p)2, 1), and not for any smaller λ. The Pisot numbers still ∈ − p provide infinitely many examples of singular νλ. In the present paper, we show that ∞ νp(ξ) 2 ξ 2γ dξ< | λ | | | ∞ −∞ for a.e. λ<0.649 such that λ1+2γ >p2 +(1 p)2. Moreover, if p (1/3, 2/3), then for some constant C>0, and all >0, − ∈ dim λ (p2 +(1 p)2 + , 1) : νp L2 < 1 C, ∈ − λ ∈ − and p 1 p p dim λ (p (1 p) − + , 1) : ν is singular < 1 C. ∈ − λ − d d Intersections of sets with spheres Suppose E R is a Borel set with d 2. Let S0 R be • ⊂ ≥ ⊂ a strictly convex, closed C∞–hypersurface surrounding the origin. Then d dim x R :(x + rS0) E = for a.e.