On the maximal directional Hilbert transform

For any dimension $n \geq 2$, we consider the maximal directional Hilbert transform $\mathscr{H}_U$ on $\mathbb R^n$ associated with a direction set $U \subseteq \mathbb S^{n-1}$: $$\mathscr{H}_Uf(x) := \frac{1}{\pi} \sup_{v \in U} \Bigl| \text{p.v.} \int f(x - tv) \, \frac{dt}{t}\Bigr|.$$ The main result in this article asserts that for any exponent $p \in (1, \infty)$, there exists a positive constant $C_{p,n}$ such that for any finite direction set $U \subseteq \mathbb S^{n-1}$, $$||\mathscr{H}_U||_{p \rightarrow p} \geq C_{p,n} \sqrt{\log \#U},$$ where $\#U$ denotes the cardinality of $U$. As a consequence, the maximal directional Hilbert transform associated with an infinite set of directions cannot be bounded on $L^p(\mathbb{R}^{n})$ for any $n\geq 2$ and any $p \in (1, \infty)$. This completes a result of Karagulyan, who proved a similar statement for $n=2$ and $p=2$.