Weighted refined decoupling estimates and application to Falconer distance set problem

We prove some weighted refined decoupling estimates. As an application, we give an alternative proof of the following result on Falconer’s distance set problem by the authors in a companion work: if a compact set $E\subset {\mathbb{R}}^d$ has Hausdorff dimension larger than $\frac{d}{2}+\frac{1}{4}-\frac{1}{8d+4}$, where $d\ge 4$, then there is a point $x\in E$ such that the pinned distance set ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_x(E)$ has positive Lebesgue measure. Aside from this application, the weighted refined decoupling estimates may be of independent interest.