Compact sets with large projections and nowhere dense sumset

Abstract

Abstract We answer a question of Banakh, Jabłońska and Jabłoński by showing that for d ⩾ 2 there exists a compact set K ⊆ R d such that the projection of K onto each hyperplane is of non-empty interior, but K + K is nowhere dense. The proof relies on a random construction. A natural approach in the proofs is to construct such a K in the unit cube with full projections, that is, such that the projections of K agree with that of the unit cube. We investigate the generalization of these problems for projections onto various dimensional subspaces as well as for ℓ -fold sumsets. We obtain numerous positive and negative results, but also leave open many interesting cases. We also show that in most cases if we have a specific example of such a compact set then actually the generic (in the sense of Baire category) compact set in a suitably chosen space is also an example. Finally, utilizing a computer-aided construction, we show that the compact set in the plane with full projections and nowhere dense sumset can be self-similar.