On the boundary of attractors with non-void interior (Q4955760)

Let \(\{f_1,\dots, f_m\}\) be a system of injective contractions of \({\mathbb{R}}^{N}\). It is well known that there is a unique compact set \(K\) such that \(K=\bigcup_{i=1}^{m}f_i(K)\). Suppose that \(K\) has non-empty interior. Several geometric measure-theoretic properties for the topological boundary of \(K\), \(\partial K\), are proved in the paper. First, if the jacobians of the \(f_i\)'s have non-vanishing determinant on \(K\) and the Lebesgue measure of the overlapping sets \(f_i(K)\cap f_j(K)\), \(i\not = j\), is zero, the set \(\partial K\) has null Lebesgue measure. This is strengthened to \(\dim K<N\) (dim stands for Hausdorff dimension) in the case that the \(f_i\)'s are contractive affinities on \({\mathbb{R}}^N\), \(f_i(x)=A_ix+a_i\), \(i=1,\dots,m\), such that \(\sum_{i=1}^{m}|\det A_i|=1\). This dimension result is shown to hold also in two important cases: i) \(K\) is self-similar (the \(f_i\)'s are similarities) with \(\dim K=N\), and ii) \(K\) is a self-affine tile of \({\mathbb{R}}^{N}\), thus improving previous work by \textit{J. C. Lagarias} and \textit{Y. Wang} [Adv. Math. 121, No.~1, 21-49 (1996; Zbl 0893.52013)]. It is also proved in the paper that, if \(K\) is self-similar and the system of similarities satisfies the so-called open set condition (notice that \(K\) may have empty interior in this case), \(\dim f_i(K)\cap f_j(K)<s\), where \(\dim K=s\). This result was also obtained by \textit{M. Morán} [Fundam. Math. 160, No.~1, 1-14 (1999; Zbl 0931.28006)] using different methods.