A subset $X$ of a Polish group $G$ is called Haar null if there exists a Borel set $B \supset X$ and Borel probability measure $\mu$ on $G$ such that $\mu(gBh)=0$ for every $g,h \in G$. We prove that there exist a set $X \subset \mathbb R$ that is not Lebesgue null and a Borel probability measure $\mu$ such that $\mu(X + t) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb R$. This answers a question from David Fremlin's problem list by showing that one cannot simplify the definition of a Haar null set by leaving out the Borel set $B$. (The answer was already known assuming the Continuum Hypothesis.) This result motivates the following Baire category analogue. It is consistent with $ZFC$ that there exist an abelian Polish group $G$ and a Cantor set $C \subset G$ such that for every non-meagre set $X \subset G$ there exists a $t \in G$ such that $C \cap (X + t)$ is relatively non-meagre in $C$. This essentially generalises results of Bartoszyński and Burke-Miller.

This paper answers a question of Broomhead, Montaldi and Sidorov about the existence of gaskets of a particular type related to the Sierpiński sieve. These gaskets are given by iterated function systems that do not satisfy the open set condition. We use the methods of Ngai and Wang to compute the dimension of these gaskets.

The billiard flow in the plane has a simple geometric definition; the movement along straight lines of points except where elastic reflections are made with the boundary of the billiard domain. We consider a class of open billiards, where the billiard domain is unbounded, and the boundary is that of a finite number of strictly convex obstacles. We estimate the Hausdorff dimension of the nonwandering set $M_0$ of the discrete time billiard ball map, which is known to be a Cantor set and the largest invariant set. Under certain conditions on the obstacles, we use a well-known coding of $M_0$ \cite{Morita} and estimates using convex fronts related to the derivative of the billiard ball map \cite{StAsy} to estimate the Hausdorff dimension of local unstable sets. Consideration of the local product structure then yields the desired estimates, which provide asymptotic bounds on the Hausdorff dimension's convergence to zero as the obstacles are separated.

We regard a system of left invariant vector fields $\mathcal{X}=\{X_1,\dots,X_k\}$ satisfying the H\"ormander condition and the related Carnot-Carath\'eodory metric on a unimodular Lie group $G$. We define Besov spaces corresponding to the sub-Laplacian $\Delta=\sum X_i^2$ both with positive and negative smoothness. The atomic decomposition of the spaces is given. In consequence we get the distributional characterization of the Hausdorff dimension of Borel subsets with the Haar measure zero.

The Sierpi\'nski carpets first considered by C.~McMullen and later studied by Y.~Peres are modified by insisting that the allowed digits in the expansions occur with prescribed frequencies. This paper (i)~~calculates the Hausdorff, box (or Minkowski), and packing dimensions of the modified Sierpi\'nski carpets and (ii)~~shows that for these sets the Hausdorff and packing measures in their dimension are never zero and gives necessary and sufficient conditions for these measures to be infinite.