On simply normal numbers to different bases (Q2634869)

The authors vastly extend a result of \textit{W. M. Schmidt} [Acta Arith. 7, 299--309 (1962; Zbl 0105.26702)] to characterize simple normality of real numbers to different bases. Their main result is as follows: Let \(M\) be a function from \(\mathcal{S}=\{2,3,5,6,7,10,\ldots\}\), the set of integers that are not perfect powers, to sets of positive integers having that property that either \(M(s)\) is closed under taking divisors (when \(M(s)\) is finite) or \(M(s)\) is the set of positive integers (when \(M(s)\) is infinite), for all \(s\) in \(\mathcal{S}\). It is known that the condition on \(M\) is necessary in order to guarantee the existence of a real number which is simply normal to exactly the bases \(s^m\) with \(s\) in \(\mathcal{S}\) and \(m\) in \(M(s)\). In the present paper, the authors show the important result that theses conditions are also sufficient. Moreover, they show that the set of real numbers that satisfy these conditions has full Hausdorff dimension. The proof involves analytic (e.g., exponential sums on Cantor sets) and combinatorial tools (e.g., modular arithmetic), as well as lower and upper bounds on simple discrepancy of Cantor sets.