Ubiquitous systems and metric number theory (Q2483172)

The technical notion of a heterogeneous ubiquitous system was introduced by \textit{J. Barral} and \textit{S. Seuret} [Bull. Braz. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 38, No. 3, 467--515 (2007; Zbl 1131.28003)] in order to study the size of certain limsup sets. This represented an extension of the notion of ubiquity, which was first conceived by \textit{M. Dodson}, \textit{B. Rynne} and \textit{J. Vickers} [Mathematika 37, No. 1, 59--73 (1990; Zbl 0688.10049)]. The paper under review is concerned with the size and intersection properties of sets of the form \[ E_t = \big\{x \in \mathbb R^d : \| x - k - x_i \| < r_i^t \text{ for infinitely many } (i,k) \in \mathbb N \times \mathbb Z^d\big\}, \] where \(t \geq 1\) and \((x_i, r_i)\) is a heterogeneous ubiquitous system. The intersection properties studied are defined as follows. Let \(h\) be a gauge function. A set \(E \in \mathbb R^d\) is said to belong to the class \(D^h(\mathbb R^d)\) if \(E\) is a \(G_\delta\)-subset of \(\mathbb R^d\) which satisfies that \({\mathcal M}^g_\infty(F \cap U) = {\mathcal M}^g_\infty(U)\) for any open set \(U \subseteq \mathbb R^d\) and any gauge function \(g\) such that \(g/h\) tends to infinity at zero. Here, \({\mathcal M}^g_\infty\) denotes the outer net measure associated with \(h\). These classes are closed under countable intersections and bi-Lipschitz mappings. Additionally, if \(F \in G^h(\mathbb R^d)\), then \(\dim F \geq s\) for any \(s \geq 0\) for which \(r^s/h(r)\) tends to infinity at zero. These classes of sets generalize the intersective sets introduced by \textit{K. Falconer} [J. Lond. Math. Soc. (2) 49, No. 2, 267--280 (1994; Zbl 0798.28004)]. A criterion is derived for \(E_t\) to be a member of a class \(G^{h_t}(\mathbb R^d)\) for an explicitly given gauge function \(h_t\). The gauge function depends on the parameters of the heterogeneous ubiquitous system as well as on \(t\). The technical definitions and conditions are specified in the paper. The main result of the paper is applied to products of multinomial measures as well as to Gibbs measures. This has consequences in metric Diophantine approximation. We give an example. Let \(\pi = (\pi_0, \dots, \pi_{c-1})\) be a probability vector and let \(t \geq 1\). Let \(U'_{\pi,t}\) denote the set of real numbers \(x\) written in base \(b\) so that \(x = x_0 + \sum_{i=1}^\infty x_i b^{-i}\) satisfying the following conditions: (i) there is a sequence \(p_n/q_n\) of rational numbers on lowest terms with \(| x-p_n/q_n| \leq q_n^{-2t}\) and (ii) for any \(b \in \{0, \dots, c-1\}\), \[ \lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} {{\# \{i \leq [2 \log_c q_n] : x_i = b\}}\over{[2 \log_c q_n]}} = \pi_b. \] This set then contains a set of the class \(G^h(\mathbb R)\) where \[ h(r) = r^{-t^{-1} \sum_{b=0}^{c-1} \pi_b \log \pi_b - 3(-\log r)^{\eta - 1/8}}, \] for any \(\eta \in (0,1/8)\).