The tail of the maximum of smooth Gaussian fields on fractal sets

Abstract: We study the probability distribution of the maximum $M_S $ of a smooth stationary Gaussian field defined on a fractal subset $S$ of $\R^n$. Our main result is the equivalent of the asymptotic behavior of the tail of the distribution $\P(M_S>u)$ as $u\rightarrow +\infty.$ The basic tool is Rice formula for the moments of the number of local maxima of a random field.