Paper detail

Analyticity of the affinity dimension for planar iterated function systems with matrices which preserve a cone

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 affinities which define the IFS are $2 \times 2$ matrices which strictly preserve a common cone, the sub-additive pressure is locally real analytic as a function of the matrix coefficients of the linear parts of the affinities. In this setting we also show that the sub-additive pressure is piecewise real analytic in $s$, implying that the affinity dimension is locally analytic in the matrix coefficients. Combining this with a recent result of Bárány, Hochman and Rapaport we obtain results concerning the analyticity of the Hausdorff dimension for certain families of planar self-affine sets.