Nikodym sets and maximal functions associated with spheres

We study spherical analogues of Nikodym sets and related maximal functions. In particular, we prove sharp $L^p$-estimates for Nikodym maximal functions associated with spheres. As a corollary, any Nikodym set for spheres must have full Hausdorff dimension. In addition, we consider a class of maximal functions which contains the spherical maximal function as a special case. We show that $L^p$-estimates for these maximal functions can be deduced from local smoothing estimates for the wave equation relative to fractal measures.