Kakeya sets and directional maximal operators in the plane (Q1006532)

The author completely characterizes the boundedness of planar directional maximal operators on \(L^p\). If \(\Omega\) is a set of directions, the author shows that \(M_{\Omega}\), the maximal operator associated to line segments in the directions \(\Omega\), is unbounded on \(L^p\) for all \(p \leq \infty\) precisely when \(\Omega\) admits Kakeya-type sets. It is also showed that if \(\Omega\) does not admit Kakeya sets, then \(\Omega\) is a generalized lacunary set, and hence, \(M_{\Omega}\) is bounded on \(L^p\) for \(p>1\). In fact, the author proves the following theorem. Fix \(1 < p \leq \infty\). The following are equivalent: (A) \(M_{\Omega}\) is bounded on \(L^p\); (B) \(\Omega\) does not admit Kakeya sets; (C) there exist \(N,M \leq \infty\) such that \(\Omega\) is covered by \(N\) lacunary sets of order \(M\).