Mass transference principle from rectangles to rectangles in Diophantine approximation

Abstract

By introducing a ubiquity property for rectangles, we prove the mass transference principle from rectangles to rectangles, i.e., if a sequence of rectangles forms a ubiquity system (a full measure property), then the limsup set defined by shrinking these rectangles to smaller rectangles has full Hausdorff measure or to say transfer a full measure property to a full Hausdorff measure property for brevity. The limsup sets generated by balls or generated by rectangles appear at the most fundamental level in Diophantine approximation: one follows from Dirichlet's theorem, the other follows from Minkowski's theorem. So the result sets up a general principle for the Hausdorff measure theory for high dimensional Diophantine approximation which, together with the landmark work of Beresnevich & Velani in 2006 where a transference principle from balls to balls is established, gives a coherent Hausdorff measure theory for metric Diophantine approximation. The dimensional theory for limsup sets generated by rectangles also underpins the dimensional theory in multiplicative Diophantine approximation where unexpected phenomenon occurs and the usually used methods or even their generalizations fail to work.