On the small denominator problem for generalized Minkowski--Funk transforms

Abstract: Rubin's generalized Minkowski--Funk transforms $M_t^α$ on the sphere $\mathbb{S}^n$ give rise, for irrational radii $t=\cos(βπ)$, to a small denominator problem governed by the asymptotic behavior of their spectral multipliers. We show that for Lebesgue-almost every $β$ the corresponding two-sine small divisor inequality has infinitely many solutions, and deduce that $(M_t^α)^{-1}$ is not bounded from $\tilde{H}^{s+ρ+1}(\mathbb{S}^n)$ to $H^s(\mathbb{S}^n)$ in the non-critical case $ρ\neq 0,1$. In the critical cases $ρ\in{0,1}$ we prove Rubin's Conjectures 4.4 and 4.7 on the failure of endpoint Sobolev regularity for the inverse transforms.