The Paulsen problem is a basic open problem in operator theory: Given vectors @math that are @math -nearly satisfying the Parseval's condition and the equal norm condition, is it close to a set of vectors @math that exactly satisfy the Parseval's condition and the equal norm condition? Given @math , the squared distance (to the set of exact solutions) is defined as @math where the infimum is over the set of exact solutions. Previous results show that the squared distance of any @math -nearly solution is at most @math and there are @math -nearly solutions with squared distance at least @math . The fundamental open question is whether the squared distance can be independent of the number of vectors @math . We answer this question affirmatively by proving that the squared distance of any @math -nearly solution is @math . Our approach is based on a continuous version of the operator scaling algorithm and consists of two parts. First, we define a dynamical system based on operator scaling and use it to prove that the squared distance of any @math -nearly solution is @math . Then, we show that by randomly perturbing the input vectors, the dynamical system will converge faster and the squared distance of an @math -nearly solution is @math when @math is large enough and @math is small enough. To analyze the convergence of the dynamical system, we develop some new techniques in lower bounding the operator capacity, a concept introduced by Gurvits to analyze the operator scaling algorithm.
The Brascamp-Lieb inequalities @cite_24 and their reversed form established by Barthe @cite_33 are general classes of inequalities with important applications in functional analysis and convex geometry (e.g. including Nelson's hypercontractivity inequality and the Brunn-Minkowski inequality as special cases). The optimal constants for thses inequalities are determined by Ball @cite_14 assuming the geometric condition (which is a condition similar to that in John's ellipsoid theorem). Garg, Gurvits, Oliveira and Wigderson @cite_12 show that the Brascamp-Lieb constants are equivalent to the capacity of an operator by a simple transformation, in which the geometric condition corresponds exactly to the doubly stochastic condition. Therefore, the algorithm in @cite_38 can be employed to scale the input to satisfying the geometric condition so as to compute the optimal constant. For our smoothed analysis in , we develop a new technique to proving a lower bound on the operator capacity and thus an upper bound on the Brascamp-Lieb constant. In particular, this implies improved bounds on the Brascamp-Lieb constants for perturbed instances in the rank-one case (which is the case that Brascamp and Lieb proved in @cite_24 ). See @cite_12 and the references therein for applications of these bounds to non-linear Brascamp-Lieb inequalities.
@cite_38 @cite_14 @cite_33 @cite_24 @cite_12
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The celebrated Brascamp-Lieb (BL) inequalities (and their extensions) are an important mathematical tool, unifying and generalizing numerous inequalities in analysis, convex geometry and information theory. While their structural theory is very well understood, far less is known about computing their main parameters. We give polynomial time algorithms to compute feasibility of BL-datum, the optimal BL-constant and a weak separation oracle for the BL-polytope. The same result holds for the so-called Reverse BL inequalities of Barthe. The best known algorithms for any of these tasks required at least exponential time. The algorithms are obtained by a simple efficient reduction of a given BL-datum to an instance of the Operator Scaling problem defined by Gurvits, for which the present authors have provided a polynomial time algorithm. This reduction implies algorithmic versions of many of the known structural results, and in some cases provide proofs that are different or simpler than existing ones. Of particular interest is the fact that the operator scaling algorithm is continuous in its input. Thus as a simple corollary of our reduction we obtain explicit bounds on the magnitude and continuity of the BL-constant in terms of the BL-data. To the best of our knowledge no such bounds were known, as past arguments relied on compactness. The continuity of BL-constants is important for developing non-linear BL inequalities that have recently found so many applications. By using optimal mass transportation and a quantitative Holder inequality, we provide estimates for the Borell–Brascamp–Lieb deficit on complete Riemannian manifolds. Accordingly, equality cases in Borell–Brascamp–Lieb inequalities (including Brunn–Minkowski and Prekopa–Leindler inequalities) are characterized in terms of the optimal transport map between suitable marginal probability measures. These results provide several qualitative applications both in the flat and non-flat frameworks. In particular, by using Caffarelli's regularity result for the Monge–Ampere equation, we give a new proof of Dubuc's characterization of the equality in Borell–Brascamp–Lieb inequalities in the Euclidean setting. When the n-dimensional Riemannian manifold has Ricci curvature Ric(M) ≥ (n-1)k for some k ⋲ ℝ, it turns out that equality in the Borell–Brascamp–Lieb inequality is expected only when a particular region of the manifold between the marginal supports has constant sectional curvature k. A precise characterization is provided for the equality in the Lott–Sturm–Villani-type distorted Brunn–Minkowski inequality on Riemannian manifolds. Related results for (not necessarily reversible) Finsler manifolds are also presented. We consider the relationship of the geometry of compact Riemannian manifolds with boundary to the first nonzero eigenvalue σ1 of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map (Steklov eigenvalue). For surfaces Σ with genus γ and k boundary components we obtain the upper bound σ1L(∂Σ)⩽2(γ+k)π. For γ=0 and k=1 this result was obtained by Weinstock in 1954, and is sharp. We attempt to find the best constant in this inequality for annular surfaces (γ=0 and k=2). For rotationally symmetric metrics we show that the best constant is achieved by the induced metric on the portion of the catenoid centered at the origin which meets a sphere orthogonally and hence is a solution of the free boundary problem for the area functional in the ball. For a general class of (not necessarily rotationally symmetric) metrics on the annulus, which we call supercritical, we prove that σ1(Σ)L(∂Σ) is dominated by that of the critical catenoid with equality if and only if the annulus is conformally equivalent to the critical catenoid by a conformal transformation which is an isometry on the boundary. Motivated by the annulus case, we show that a proper submanifold of the ball is immersed by Steklov eigenfunctions if and only if it is a free boundary solution. We then prove general upper bounds for conformal metrics on manifolds of any dimension which can be properly conformally immersed into the unit ball in terms of certain conformal volume quantities. We show that these bounds are only achieved when the manifold is minimally immersed by first Steklov eigenfunctions. We also use these ideas to show that any free boundary solution in two dimensions has area at least π, and we observe that this implies the sharp isoperimetric inequality for free boundary solutions in the two-dimensional case. where de denotes normalized surface measure, V is the conformal gradient and q = (2n) (n 2). A modern folklore theorem is that by taking the infinitedimensional limit of this inequality, one obtains the Gross logarithmic Sobolev inequality for Gaussian measure, which determines Nelson's hypercontractive estimates for the Hermite semigroup (see [8]). One observes using conformal invariance that the above inequality is equivalent to the sharp Sobolev inequality on Rn for which boundedness and extremal functions can be easily calculated using dilation invariance and geometric symmetrization. The roots here go back to Hardy and Littlewood. The advantage of casting the problem on the sphere is that the role of the constants is evident, and one is led immediately to the conjecture that this inequality should hold whenever possible (for example, 2 < q < 0o if n = 2). This is in fact true and will be demonstrated in Section 2. A clear question at this point is "What is the situation in dimension 2?" Two important arguments ([25], [26], [27]) dealt with this issue, both motivated by geometric variational problems. Because q goes to infinity for dimension 2, the appropriate function space is the exponential class. Responding in part