§9.4: Two-function hypercontractivity and induction

At this point we have established that if $f : \{-1,1\} \to {\mathbb R}$ then for any $p \leq 2 \leq q$, $\|\mathrm{T}_{\sqrt{p-1}} f\|_2 \leq \|f\|_p, \qquad \|\mathrm{T}_{1/\sqrt{q-1}} f\|_q \leq \|f\|_2.$ We would like to extend these facts to the case of general $f : \{-1,1\}^n \to {\mathbb R}$; i.e., establish the $(p,2)$- and $(2,q)$-Hypercontractivity Theorems stated at the beginning of the chapter. A natural approach is induction.
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§9.3: $(2,q)$- and $(p,2)$-hypercontractivity for a single bit

Although you can get a lot of mileage out of studying the $4$-norm of random variables, it’s also natural to consider other norms.
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§9.2: Small subsets of the hypercube are noise-sensitive

An immediate consequence of the Bonami Lemma is that for any $f : \{-1,1\}^n \to {\mathbb R}$ and $k \in {\mathbb N}$, $$\label{eqn:2-4-hypercon-k} \|\mathrm{T}_{1/\sqrt{3}} f^{=k}\|_4 = \tfrac{1}{\sqrt{3}^k} \|f^{=k}\|_4 \leq \|f^{=k}\|_2.$$
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§9.1: Low-degree polynomials are reasonable

As anyone who has worked in probability knows, a random variable can sometimes behave in rather “unreasonable” ways. It may be never close to its expectation. It might exceed its expectation almost always, or almost never. It might have finite $1$st, $2$nd, and $3$rd moments, but an infinite $4$th moment. All of this poor behaviour can cause a lot of trouble — wouldn’t it be nice to have a class of “reasonable” random variables?
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Chapter 9: Basics of hypercontractivity

In 1970, Bonami proved the following central result:

The Hypercontractivity Theorem Let $f : \{-1,1\}^n \to {\mathbb R}$ and let ${1 \leq p \leq q \leq \infty}$. Then $\|\mathrm{T}_\rho f\|_q \leq \|f\|_p$ for $0 \leq \rho \leq \sqrt{\tfrac{p-1}{q-1}}$.

Chapter 8 notes

The origins of the orthogonal decomposition described in Section 3 date back to the work of Hoeffding [Hoe48] (see also [vMis47]).
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§8.6: Highlight: Randomized decision tree complexity

A decision tree $T$ for $f : \{-1,1\}^n \to \{-1,1\}$ can be thought of as a deterministic algorithm which, given adaptive query access to the bits of an unknown string $x \in \{-1,1\}^n$, outputs $f(x)$. E.g., to describe a natural decision tree for $f = \mathrm{Maj}_3$ in words: “Query $x_1$, then $x_2$. If they are equal, output their value; otherwise, query and output $x_3$.” For a worst-case input (one where $x_1 \neq x_2$) this algorithm has a cost of $3$, meaning it makes $3$ queries. The cost of the worst-case input is the depth of the decision tree.
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§8.5: Abelian groups

The previous section covered the case of $f \in L^2(\Omega^n, \pi^{\otimes n})$ with $|\Omega| = 2$; there, we saw it could be helpful to look at explicit Fourier bases. When $|\Omega| \geq 3$ this is often not helpful, especially if the only “operation” on the domain is equality. For example, if $f : \{\mathsf{Red}, \mathsf{Green}, \mathsf{Blue}\}^n \to {\mathbb R}$ then it’s best to just work abstractly with the orthogonal decomposition. However if there is a notion of, say, “addition” in $\Omega$ then there is a natural, canonical Fourier basis for $L^2(\Omega, \pi)$ when $\pi$ is the uniform distribution.
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