Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/iii/paper-216/3/d/solution

Subtracting the expected value of does not alter either side, so suppose . Since reversibility makes a self-adjoint operator and stationarity makes it a contraction,
The Discrete-time Poincaré inequality for a Markov kernel is therefore equivalent to
Applying this inequality successively to yields
Conversely, the asserted variance contraction with rearranges to the Poincaré inequality. Hence the two statements are equivalent.

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