Kakeya-Type Sets Over Cantor Sets of Directions in $$mathbb {R}^{d+1}$$

Given a Cantor-type subset (Omega ) of a smooth curve in (mathbb R^{d+1}), we construct examples of sets that contain unit line segments with directions from (Omega ) and exhibit analytical features similar to those of classical Kakeya sets of arbitrarily small ((d+1))-dimensional Lebesgue measure. The construction is based on probabilistic methods relying on the tree structure of (Omega ), and extends to higher dimensions an analogous planar result of Bateman and Katz (Math Res Lett 15(1):73–81, 2008). In contrast to the planar situation, a significant aspect of our analysis is the classification of intersecting tube tuples relative to their location, and the deduction of intersection probabilities of such tubes generated by a random mechanism. The existence of these Kakeya-type sets implies that the directional maximal operator associated with the direction set (Omega ) is unbounded on (L^p(mathbb {R}^{d+1})) for all (1le p.