We completely describe the equilibrium states of a class of potentials over the full shift which includes Falconer's singular value function for affine iterated function systems with invertible affinities. We show that the number of distinct ergodic equilibrium states of such a potential is bounded by a number depending only on the dimension, answering a question of A. Käenmäki. We prove that all such equilibrium states are fully supported and satisfy a Gibbs inequality with respect to a suitable subadditive potential. We apply these results to demonstrate that the affinity dimension of an iterated function system with invertible affinities is always strictly reduced when any one of the maps is removed, resolving a folklore open problem in the dimension theory of self-affine fractals. We deduce a natural criterion under which the Hausdorff dimension of the attractor has the same strict reduction property.
We consider the limit set of generalised iterated function systems. Under the assumption of a natural potential, the so called cylinder function, we prove the existence of the invariant probability measure satisfying the equilibrium state. We motivate this approach by showing that for typical self-affine sets there exists an ergodic invariant measure having the same Hausdorff dimension as the set itself.
Given an infinite iterated function system (IFS) $\mathcal{F}$, we define its dimension spectrum $D(\mathcal{F})$ to be the set of real numbers which can be realised as the dimension of some subsystem of $\mathcal{F}$. In the case where $\mathcal{F}$ is a conformal IFS, the properties of the dimension spectrum have been studied by several authors. In this paper we investigate for the first time the properties of the dimension spectrum when $\mathcal{F}$ is a non-conformal IFS. In particular, unlike dimension spectra of conformal IFS which are always compact and perfect (by a result of Chousion…
We refine the multifractal formalism for the local dimension of a Gibbs measure $μ$ supported on the attractor $Λ$ of a conformal iterated functions system on the real line. Namely, for given $α\in \mathbb{R}$, we establish the formalism for the Hausdorff dimension of level sets of points $x\inΛ$ for which the $μ$-measure of a ball of radius $r_{n}$ centered at $x$ obeys a power law $r_{n}{}^α$, for a sequence $r_{n}\rightarrow0$. This allows us to investigate the Hölder regularity of various fractal functions, such as distribution functions and conjugacy maps associated with conformal iterate…
This paper examines thresholds for certain properties of the attractor of a general one-parameter affine family of iterated functions systems. As the parameter increases, the iterated function system becomes less contractive, and the attractor evolves. Thresholds are studied for the following properties: the existence of an attractor, the connectivity of the attractor, and the existence of non-empty interior of the attractor. Also discussed are transition phenomena between existence and non-existence of an attractor.
In this note we give a simple sufficient condition for an affine iterated function system to admit an invariant affine subspace persistently with respect to changes in the translation parameters. This yields further examples of tuples of contracting linear maps which do not satisfy the conclusions of Falconer's theorem on the Hausdorff dimension of almost every self-affine set. We also obtain new examples of iterated function systems of similarity transformations which cannot satisfy the open set condition for any choice of translation parameters, and resolve a related question of Peres and So…
We analyze the two-point motions of iterated function systems on the unit interval generated by expanding and contracting affine maps, where the expansion and contraction rates are determined by a pair $(M,N)$ of integers. This dynamics depends on the Lyapunov exponent. For a negative Lyapunov exponent we establish synchronization, meaning convergence of orbits with different initial points. For a vanishing Lyapunov exponent we establish intermittency, where orbits are close for a set of iterates of full density, but are intermittently apart. For a positive Lyapunov exponent we show the existe…
Let $\{S_i\}_{i\in Λ}$ be a finite contracting affine iterated function system (IFS) on ${\Bbb R}^d$. Let $(Σ,σ)$ denote the two-sided full shift over the alphabet $Λ$, and $π:Σ\to {\Bbb R}^d$ be the coding map associated with the IFS. We prove that the projection of an ergodic $σ$-invariant measure on $Σ$ under $π$ is always exact dimensional, and its Hausdorff dimension satisfies a Ledrappier-Young type formula. Furthermore, the result extends to average contracting affine IFSs. This completes several previous results and answers a folklore open question in the community of fractals. Some ap…
In 1988 K. Falconer introduced a formula which predicts the value of the Hausdorff dimension of the attractor of an affine iterated function system. The value given by this formula -- sometimes referred to as the affinity dimension -- is known to agree with the Hausdorff dimension both generically and in an increasing range of explicit cases. It is however a nontrivial problem to estimate the numerical value of the affinity dimension for specific iterated function systems. In this article we substantially extend an earlier result of M. Pollicott and P. Vytnova on the computation of the affinit…
In this article we investigate the pressure function and affinity dimension for iterated function systems associated to the "box-like" self-affine fractals investigated by D.-J. Feng, Y. Wang and J.M. Fraser. Combining previous results of V. Yu. Protasov, A. Käenmäki and the author we obtain an explicit formula for the pressure function which makes it straightforward to compute the affinity dimension of box-like self-affine sets. We also prove a variant of this formula which allows the computation of a modified singular value pressure function defined by J.M. Fraser. We give some explicit exam…
The sub-additive pressure function $P(s)$ for an affine iterated function system (IFS) and the affinity dimension, defined as the unique solution $s_0$ to $P(s_0)=1$, were introduced by K. Falconer in his seminal 1988 paper on self-affine fractals. The affinity dimension prescribes a value for the Hausdorff dimension of a self-affine set which is known to be correct in generic cases and in an increasing range of explicit cases. It was shown by Feng and Shmerkin in 2014 that the affinity dimension depends continuously on the IFS. In this article we prove that when the linear parts of the affini…
An affine iterated function system is a finite collection of affine invertible contractions and the invariant set associated to the mappings is called self-affine. In 1988, Falconer proved that, for given matrices, the Hausdorff dimension of the self-affine set is the affinity dimension for Lebesgue almost every translation vectors. Similar statement was proven by Jordan, Pollicott, and Simon in 2007 for the dimension of self-affine measures. In this article, we have an orthogonal approach. We introduce a class of self-affine systems in which, given translation vectors, we get the same results…
A classical theorem of Hutchinson asserts that if an iterated function system acts on $\mathbb{R}^d$ by similitudes and satisfies the open set condition then it admits a unique self-similar measure with Hausdorff dimension equal to the dimension of the attractor. In the class of measures on the attractor which arise as the projections of shift-invariant measures on the coding space, this self-similar measure is the unique measure of maximal dimension. In the context of affine iterated function systems it is known that there may be multiple shift-invariant measures of maximal dimension if the l…
We show that every totally ergodic generalised matrix equilibrium state is psi-mixing with respect to the natural partition into cylinders and hence is measurably isomorphic to a Bernoulli shift in its natural extension. This implies that the natural extensions of ergodic generalised matrix equilibrium states are measurably isomorphic to Bernoulli processes extended by finite rotations. This resolves a question of Gatzouras and Peres in the special case of self-affine repelling sets with generic translations.
A well-known theorem of J.E. Hutchinson states that if an iterated function system consists of similarity transformations and satisfies the open set condition then its attractor supports a self-similar measure with Hausdorff dimension equal to the similarity dimension. In this article we prove the following result which may be regarded as a form of partial converse: if an iterated function system consists of invertible affine transformations whose linear parts do not preserve a common invariant subspace, and its attractor supports a self-affine measure with Hausdorff dimension equal to the aff…
We investigate the Hölder geometry of curves generated by iterated function systems (IFS) in a complete metric space. A theorem of Hata from 1985 asserts that every connected attractor of an IFS is locally connected and path-connected. We give a quantitative strengthening of Hata's theorem. First we prove that every connected attractor of an IFS is $(1/s)$-Hölder path-connected, where $s$ is the similarity dimension of the IFS. Then we show that every connected attractor of an IFS is parameterized by a $(1/α)$-Hölder curve for all $α>s$. At the endpoint, $α=s$, a theorem of Remes from 1998 alr…
The paper is devoted to searching algorithms which will allow to generate images of attractors of \emph{generalized iterated function systems} (GIFS in short), which are certain generalization of classical iterated function systems, defined by Mihail and Miculescu in 2008, and then intensively investigated in the last years (the idea is that instead of selfmaps of a metric space $X$, we consider mappings form the Cartesian product $X\times...\times X$ to $X$). Two presented algorithms are counterparts of classical \emph{deterministic algorithm} and so-called \emph{chaos game}. The third and fo…
We construct a self-affine sponge in $\mathbb R^3$ whose dynamical dimension, i.e. the supremum of the Hausdorff dimensions of its invariant measures, is strictly less than its Hausdorff dimension. This resolves a long-standing open problem in the dimension theory of dynamical systems, namely whether every expanding repeller has an ergodic invariant measure of full Hausdorff dimension. More generally we compute the Hausdorff and dynamical dimensions of a large class of self-affine sponges, a problem that previous techniques could only solve in two dimensions. The Hausdorff and dynamical dimens…
Let $T_1,\ldots, T_m$ be a family of $d\times d$ invertible real matrices with $\|T_i\| <1/2$ for $1\leq i\leq m$. We provide some sufficient conditions on these matrices such that the self-affine set generated by the iterated function system $\{T_ix+a_i\}_{i=1}^m$ on $\Bbb R^d$ has non-empty interior for almost all $(a_1,\ldots, a_m)\in \Bbb R^{md}$.
In this paper we study random iterated function systems. Our main result gives sufficient conditions for an analogue of a well known theorem due to Khintchine from Diophantine approximation to hold almost surely for stochastically self-similar and self-affine random iterated function systems.
Given an iterated function system of affine dilations with fixed points the vertices of a regular polygon, we characterize which points in the limit set lie on the boundary of its convex hull.
We study the box dimensions of self-affine sets in $\mathbb{R}^3$ which are generated by a finite collection of generalised permutation matrices. We obtain bounds for the dimensions which hold with very minimal assumptions and give rise to sharp results in many cases. There are many issues in extending the well-established planar theory to $\mathbb{R}^3$ including that the principal planar projections are (affine distortions of) self-affine sets with overlaps (rather than self-similar sets) and that the natural modified singular value function fails to be sub-multiplicative in general. We intr…
In this paper we develop a new approach for studying overlapping iterated function systems. This approach is inspired by a famous result due to Khintchine from Diophantine approximation. This result shows that for a family of limsup sets, their Lebesgue measure is determined by the convergence or divergence of naturally occurring volume sums. For many parameterised families of overlapping iterated function systems, we prove that a typical member will exhibit similar Khintchine like behaviour. Families of iterated function systems our results apply to include those arising from Bernoulli convol…
