Fractal measures and their singularities: The characterization of strange sets

Abstract

We propose a description of normalized distributions (measures) lying upon possibly fractal sets; for example those arising in dynamical systems theory. We focus upon the scaling properties of such measures, by considering their singularities, which are characterized by two indices: α, which determines the strength of their singularities; and f, which describes how densely they are distributed. The spectrum of singularities is described by giving the possible range of α values and the function f(α). We apply this formalism to the $2^{\infty }$ cycle of period doubling, to the devil’s staircase of mode locking, and to trajectories on 2-tori with golden-mean winding numbers. In all cases the new formalism allows an introduction of smooth functions to characterize the measures. We believe that this formalism is readily applicable to experiments and should result in new tests of global universality.