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Is there a classification of measures on $\mathbb R^n$ which are invariant under (Euclidean) isometries? Hausdorff measures of all kinds are examples -- could that be all of them? More precisely,

  • By a measure on $\mathbb R^n$, I mean a function $\mu: Borel(\mathbb R^n) \to [0,\infty]$ (where $Borel(\mathbb R^n)$ is the $\sigma$-algebra of Borel subsets of $\mathbb R^n$) such that $\mu$ carries countable disjoint unions to sums (this includes the condition $\mu(\emptyset) = 0$ as the case of the empty disjoint union and nullary sum).

  • I say that $\mu$ is isometry-invariant if, for every isometry $\Lambda: \mathbb R^n \to \mathbb R^n$, we have $\mu(\Lambda A) = \mu(A)$ for every Borel set $A \subseteq \mathbb R^n$.

Question 1: Is there a classification of isometry-invariant measures on $\mathbb R^n$?

For example, for a suitable "gauge" function $\phi: [0,\infty) \to [0,\infty]$ and a suitable collection of sets $\mathcal C \subseteq Borel(\mathbb R^n)$, the $(\phi,\mathcal C)$-Hausdorff meausure is an isometry-invariant measure on $\mathbb R^n$, defined by

$$\mu^{\phi,\mathcal C}(A) = \lim_{\delta \to 0^+} \inf \{ \sum_i \phi(diam(C_i)) \mid C_i \in \mathcal C,\, A \subseteq \cup C_i,\, diam(C_i) < \delta \}$$

Question 2: In particular, is every isometry-invariant measure on $\mathbb R^n$ given by the $(\phi,\mathcal C)$-Hausdorff measure for some gauge function $\phi$ and collection $\mathcal C$?

NB: When $n=1$, Hirst constructs a $(\phi,\mathcal C)$-Hausdorff measure which is not equivalent to a $(\psi,\mathcal O)$-Hausdorff measure, where $\mathcal O \subseteq Borel(\mathbb R^n)$ is the collection of open sets, for any $\psi$. His $\mathcal C$ is translation invariant, so that his $\mu^{(\phi,\mathcal C)}$ is translation-invariant, but I don't think his $\mathcal C$ is reflection-invariant (so strictly speaking it may no be "suitable" in the sense alluded to above) and as a result, I'm not sure whether his $\mu^{(\phi,\mathcal C)}$ is reflection-invariant. But at any rate, this suggests that in order to construct all isometry-invariant measures via "the Hausdorff method", one will probably need to take advantage of the freedom to vary $\mathcal C$ as well as $\phi$ (if it is indeed possible). I learned of this example from Gro-Tsen's comment here.

Question 3: In light of YCor's excellent comment below, I'd also like to ask both Questions 1 and 2 with the restriction that the measure $\mu$ satisfy some regularity condition (but not so strong a regularity condition as to ensure we have a multiple of Lebesgue measure) and not be $\{0,\infty\}$-valued.

Question 4: What if we assume additionally that our measure $\mu$ satisfies some sort of universal scaling law, i.e. $\mu(\lambda X) = \psi(\lambda \psi^{-1}(\mu(X)))$ for some order-preserving diffeomorphism $\psi: [0,\infty] \to [0,\infty]$? Does this restriction (plus isometry-invariance) make it possible to classify such measures?

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  • $\begingroup$ proofwiki.org/wiki/… $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 22:53
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    $\begingroup$ @MoisheKohan I think that article must be implicitly assuming that the measure is finite on some nonempty open set or something like that. After all, as mentioned in the question, Hausdorff measures are obvious counterexamples to the claim that every translation-invariant measure is a multiple of Lebesgue. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 22:54
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    $\begingroup$ Indeed, upon closer inspection, this assumption is stated explicitly in the third line of the theorem statement. As I think is clear from the question, I'm not assuming there is a nonempty open set where my measure is finite. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 23:02
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    $\begingroup$ You might want to exclude measures valued in $\{0,\infty\}$? These correspond to $\sigma$-ideals of Borel subsets that are invariant under isometries. For instance, map a Borel subset to $0$ if it's contained in an $F_\sigma$ subset of empty interior and to $\infty$ otherwise. Or just $\infty$ times Lebesgue or times a Hausdorff measure, where $\infty.0=0$. $\endgroup$
    – YCor
    Commented Apr 20, 2020 at 1:23
  • $\begingroup$ @YCor Good point. Maybe a reasonable assumption would be that there exists a closed set with nonzero finite measure? Maybe even assume the measure is inner regular? $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 20, 2020 at 13:26

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