Self-similar sets of zero Hausdorff measure and positive packing measure

We prove that there exist self-similar sets of zero Hausdorff measure, but positive and finite packing measure, in their dimension; for instance, for almost everyu ∈ [3, 6], the set of all sums ∑08an4−nan4−n with digits withan ∈ {0, 1,u} has this property. Perhaps surprisingly, this behavior is typical in various families of self-similar sets, e.g., for projections of certain planar self-similar sets to lines. We establish the Hausdorff measure result using special properties of self-similar sets, but the result on packing measure is obtained from a general complement to Marstrand’s projection theorem, that relates the Hausdorff measure of an arbitrary Borel set to the packing measure of its projections.