Prove carpet has positive Hausdorff measure in its dimension

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Given $D\subset\{0,1,2,\dots n-1\}\times\{0,\dots,m-1\}$, let $$K(D)=\{\sum_{k=1}^\infty(a_kn^{-k},b_km^{-k}):(a_k,b_k)\in D\forall k\}.$$ Show that if $D$ has uniform horizontal fibers (i.e. the number of rectangles in each row of $K(D)$ is equal), it means that $K(D)$ has positive Hausdorff measure in its dimension.

I find the formulation of this question a bit unclear I know that suppose $K(D)$ has uniform fibers the Malinowski and Hausdorff dimensions agree and $$\dim K(D)=1+\log_n\frac{\#D}{m}$$(where #D is the cardinality of D) but I cannot understand how it implies that exist a positive Hausdorff measure?

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The following lemma is theorem 5.8 of Falconer's The Geometry of Fractal Sets and, I believe, is directly applicable to your situation.


Let $F$ be a subset of the $xz$ plane, let $A$ be any subset of the $z$-axis, and for $z\in A$, let $$F_z = \{x: (x,z)\in F\}.$$ Suppose there is a constant $c>0$ such that ${\cal H}^{t}(F_z) > c$ for all $z\in A$. Then $${\cal H}^{s+t}(F) \geq b \; c \; {\cal H}^s(A),$$ where $b$ depends only on $s$ and $t$.


Examining your specific question in a bit more detail, the notation is, indeed, a bit difficult. It was introduced in a paper by Curt McMullen, though, so who am I to complain? Let's examine a couple of simple examples to help us figure it out.

First, let's look a simpler, one-dimensional example. Suppose that $n=3$ and $D=\{0,2\}$ The one-dimensional analogue of your sum set is then $$\left\{x=\sum_{k=1}^{\infty} \frac{a_k}{3^k}: a_k = 0 \text{ or } 2\right\}.$$ This is a well known characterization of the Cantor set.

The Cantor set, of course, is often described as a self-similar set, in that it is made of two copies of itself scaled by the factor $1/3$. Your set $K(D)$ is self-similar only when $m=n$ but, more generally, is self-affine; it is made of smaller copies of itself scaled by the factor $1/n$ horizontally and $1/m$ vertically. To make this clear, let is again look at an example. Let's suppose that $n=6$, $m=3$, and that $$D=\{\{0, 0\}, \{1, 0\}, \{3, 0\}, \{5, 0\}, \{1, 1\}, \{2, 1\}, \{4, 1\}, \{5, 1\}, \{0, 2\}, \{1, 2\}, \{4, 2\}, \{5, 2\}\}.$$ Then, $$K(D)=\left\{(x,y) = \sum_{k=1}^\infty(a_kn^{-k},b_km^{-k}): (a_k,b_k)\in D\right\}$$ can be visualized like so:

enter image description here

The rectangle labeled $(i,j)$ is the set of all points in $K(D)$ such that $(a_1,b_1)=(i,j)$. We can iterate the procedure to obtain a better visualization of $K(D)$. After several iterates, we get something like so:

enter image description here

Note that we have the same number of rectangles in each row. That's the manifestation of the "uniform horizontal fibers" which allows us to apply the lemma.