Self-similar measures in quasi-metric spaces (Q4953590)

Let \(\varphi_{1},\ldots, \varphi_{m}\) be contractions in a complete metric space \(X\). In a seminal paper [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 30, 713-747 (1981; Zbl 0598.28011)], \textit{J. E. Hutchinson} proved the existence of a unique Borel measure \(\mu\) (called \textit{self-similar measure}) satisfying the self-replicating equation \( \mu=\sum_{i=1}^{m}p_i \mu\circ \varphi_{i}^{-1}\equiv {\mathcal T}\mu, \) where \(p_1,\ldots,p_m\) are given positive numbers with \(\sum_{i=1}^{m}p_i=1\). He further proved that \(\mu\) is a global attractor for the operator \({\mathcal T}\) in the topology of weak convergence within the space \({\mathcal M}\) of Borel regular probability measures with bounded support. In this paper, these facts are generalized to the case that \(X\) is rather a locally compact complete quasi-metric space. Whereas the line of the proof builds on Hutchinson's [op. cit.], the extension is far from trivial since a main tool in Hutchinson's paper, namely a metric defined in \({\mathcal M}\) that induces the topology of weak convergence, fails in the context of this paper. This difficulty is by-passed by defining a suitable metric for measures in quasi-metric spaces. The main results are shown to apply also in the case that \(X\) is a space of homogeneous type. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0934.00032].