Spectral gaps and Fourier dimension for self-conformal sets with overlaps

Abstract: We prove a uniform spectral gap for complex transfer operators near the critical line associated to overlapping $C^2$ iterated function systems on the real line satisfying a Uniform Non-Integrability (UNI) condition. Our work extends that of Naud (2005) on spectral gaps for nonlinear Cantor sets to allow overlaps. The proof builds a new method to reduce the problem of the lack of Markov structure to average contraction of products of random Dolgopyat operators. This approach is inspired by a disintegration technique developed by Algom, the first author and Shmerkin in the study of normal numbers. As a consequence of the method of the second author and Stevens, our spectral gap result implies that the Fourier transform of any non-atomic self-conformal measure decays to zero at a polynomial rate for any $C^{2}$ iterated function system satisfying UNI. This latter result leads to Fractal Uncertainty Principles with arbitrary overlaps.