PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Volume 127, Number 11, Pages 3305–3308 S 0002-9939(99)05107-2 Article electronically published on May 13, 1999

SUM OF CANTOR SETS: SELF-SIMILARITY AND MEASURE

PEDRO MENDES

(Communicated by Michael Handel)

Abstract. In this note it is shown that the sum of two homogeneous Cantor sets is often a uniformly contracting self-similar set and it is given a sufficient condition for such a set to be of Lebesgue measure zero (in fact, of Hausdorff dimension less than one and positive Hausdorff measure at this dimension).

1. Definitions and results The study of the arithmetic difference (sum) of two Cantor sets has been of great interest for the homoclinic bifurcations of dynamical systems, since the last decade. For a detailed presentation of this subject we refer the reader to [7]. About 1987, J. Palis made the following Conjecture. If the sum of two affine Cantor sets has positive Lebesgue measure, then it contains an interval. Many articles have been written on this conjecture; see [4], [5], [6] and [8]. Another subject which has been of great interest since the work of B. Mandelbrot ([3]) is the study of fractal dimensions, introduced by Hausdorff in the twenties. The most useful source of examples in this context is given by self-similar sets. Several efforts have been made ([1], [2], [9]) to solve the following Question. Is it true that if a self-similar set has positive Lebesgue measure, then it contains an interval? Our first result (Theorem A below) gives an indication that the conjecture and the question above are related to each other. We are going to state it precisely. Let fi : x R cix + ai R, 0 real line. There is a unique compact and nonempty set A R such that A = f (A) f (A) ([2]). This set is called a self-similar set, anditiscalleda⊂ 1 ∪···∪ r uniformly contracting self-similar set whenever c1 = =cr =c. ~ ··· 2r+1 Let (2r + 1) be the set of all vectors λ =(λ, λ10 ,λ,...,λr0 ,λ) R , such H ∈ ~ that λ>0,λ0>0,i=1,...,r;and λ+λ0 +λ+ +λ0 +λ =1.Let C(λ)be i 1 ··· r the self-similar set obtained, as above, using the contractions fi(x)=λx + ai, with ~ a0 =0,ai=λ+λ10+λ+ +λi0,i=1,...,r.The set C(λ) is called a homogeneous Cantor set. We have the··· following

Received by the editors February 6, 1998. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 28A78, 58F14. Key words and phrases. Self-similar set, homogeneous Cantor set, Hausdorff dimension, Haus- dorff measure.

c 1999 American Mathematical Society

3305

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Theorem A. There is a dense set (2r +1) (2s+1), such that if (~λ,~γ) D⊂H ×H ∈ ,thenC(~λ)+C(~γ)= x+y:x C(~λ),y C(~γ) is a uniformly contracting self-similarD set. { ∈ ∈ } We also obtain a sufficient condition for a uniformly contracting self-similar set to be of Lebesgue measure zero. Let A be a uniformly contracting self-similar set, as above. We may assume, without loss of generality (see next section for explanation), that 0 = a1

2. Preliminaries

Let gi : R R be given by gi(x)=cx + bi,i=1,...,r, with b1 < union of all such in ◦···◦ i1 0 intervals is denoted by An and is called n-step of the construction of A. Moreover, ∞ (f f )(A ) is called an interval of A . Then,wehavethatA= A . in ◦···◦ i1 0 n n n=0 Using this construction, we can characterize an element a A by the\ existence ∈ ∞ of a sequence a , with a a,...,a , such that a = a ck. The reciprocal ik ik ∈{ 1 r} ik k=0 of this fact will be useful in the next section. It can beX stated as follows. Let b ,...,b be a given finite set and let c (0, 1). The set B of the numbers { 1 r} ∈ ∞ b ck, with b b ,...,b , is the unique nonempty compact set satisfying the ik ik ∈{ 1 r} Xk=0 equation B = g1(B) gr(B), with gi as above (see [2]). This fact will be used in the proof of Theorem∪···∪ A. Another important tool we are going to use in the next section is the strong open set condition SOSC. We say that the self-similar set A above satisfies the SOSC if there is an open set V A, such that f (V ) f (V )= ,whenever i = j, and ⊃ i ∩ j ∅ 6 fi(V ) V, for all i =1,...,r. An important result of ([2]) says that if the self- similar⊂ set A satisfies the SOSC, then A has Hausdorff dimension less than one and positive Hausdorff measure at this dimension. We are going to use this fact in the proof of Theorem B.

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3. Proofs of the results 3.1 Proof of Theorem A. Let us define the set . An element (~λ,~γ) belongs to if, and only if, there are a real number µ D(0, 1) and positive integers p D p q ∈ ~ and q such that λ = µ and γ = µ . Recall that λ =(λ, λ10 ,λ,...,λr0 ,λ)and ~γ=(γ,γ10 ,γ,...,γs0,γ) are elements of (2r +1)and (2s +1),respectively. For afixedγ (0, 1) the continuous decreasingH function tH γt assume all values in the interval∈ (0, 1), as t varies from 0 to . Therefore, an7→ appropriate choice for the ∞ rational number p/q > 0, with small perturbations of λi0 ,i=1,...,r, allow us to approximate an element (~λ,~γ)of (2r +1) (2s + 1) by an element of the form H ×H p/q p/q p/q ((γ ,λ10 ,γ ,...,λr0 ,γ ), (γ,γ10 ,γ,...,γs0,γ)).

Therefore, it is enough to choose µ = γ1/q to see that this element is in . D It remains to prove that if (~λ,~γ) ,then C(~λ)+C(~γ) is a uniformly contracting ∈D self-similar set. As we saw in the previous section, an element x of C(~λ)isgiven ∞ ∞ p k q k by x = aik (µ ) andanelementyof C(~γ)isgivenbyy= bjk (µ ) , because kX=0 Xk=0 (~λ,~γ) .Then x + y is given by a power series in c = µpq, whose coefficients vary ∈D q 1 p 1 − − kp kq in the finite set of all sums of the form aik µ + bjk µ . Thus, again by the Xk=0 kX=0 previous section, it follows that C(~λ)+C(~γ) is a uniformly contracting self-similar set, with contracting ratio c.

3.2 Proof of Theorem B. Let I =[a, b] (0, 1)beaclosedintervalsuchthat c I. We are going to be more precise about⊂ the set :anelementf is a ∈ A ∈A ∞ power series f(x)= d xk, with x I and d D, for all k. Here D ( 1, 1) is k ∈ k ∈ ⊂ − k=0 the finite set a aX,i,j=1,...,r , which is symmetric with respect to 0 D. { i − j } ∈ Moreover, if f ,thend0=0. We are going∈A to prove that6 is compact in the uniform topology. In fact, let Λ be the set of sequences d =(d ,dA ,d ,...) (D 0 ) D D ... with the product 0 1 2 ∈ \{ } × × × ∞ topology. Let Φ : Λ be defined by [Φ(d)](x)= d xk. By the definition of →A k kX=0 , it follows that Φ is onto. If d, d0 Λ are sufficiently near, then the distance A ∈ 2(1 c) between Φ(d)andΦ(d) in the uniform topology is bounded by bn − , where 0 1 b n is arbitrarily big. This implies that Φ is continuous and therefore −is compact, as we claimed above. A The hypothesis that f(c) =0,for all f ,assures the existence of a number ρ>0 such that f(c) ρ, for6 all f ,∈Abecause is compact. Now we choose | |≥n ∈A A n0 > 0 such that ρ>c ,whenever n n0. Consider the n-step An of the construc- tion of A, for some n n , as described≥ in the previous section. We are going to ≥ 0 show that fi(An) fj(An)= ,for all i, j =1,...,r, i = j. In fact, suppose by contradiction that∩f (A ) f (∅A ) = . This means that there6 are intervals I, J of i n ∩ j n 6 ∅ An such that fi(I) fj(J) = , that is, the difference between the left ends of the ∩ 6 ∅ n+1 intervals fi(I)andfj(J) is bounded in modulus by c . This difference is given by

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n+1 n+1 d ck, where d = a a =0.Thus, the function f(x)= d xk is an element k 0 i − j 6 k k=0 k=0 ofX and then f(c) ρ>cn+1, which is a contradiction. X A | |≥ Let Vi be the cε-neighbourhood of fi(An),i=1,...,r. The number ε>0 can be chosen such that the open sets V1,...,Vr are pairwise disjoint, because the sets f1(An),...,fr(An) are compact and pairwise disjoint. Let V be the ε-neighbourhood of A . It is clear that f (V )=V,for all i. Moreover, V V n i i ⊃ i because An fi(An). Thus, the self-similar set A satisfies the strong open set con- dition and therefore⊃ has Hausdorff dimension less than one and positive Hausdorff measure at this dimension.

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Departamento de Matematica,´ ICEx, UFMG Av. Antonio Carlos 6627 31270.901 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil E-mail address: [email protected]

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