Beckner's inequality ($\Vert T_{\rho }f{\Vert }_q\le \Vert f{\Vert }_p$)

For $1<p\le q<\infty$ and $0\le \rho \le \sqrt{(p-1)/(q-1)}$, the noise operator on the Boolean hypercube satisfies $\Vert T_{\rho }f{\Vert }_q\le \Vert f{\Vert }_p$ for the uniform probability measure. In particular,Here $\hat{f}(S)$ are Fourier-Walsh transform coefficients. The endpoint $\rho =0$ follows by averaging. This hypercontractive inequality on the Boolean hypercube controls Fourier-Walsh transform coefficients of discrete derivatives of a Boolean function and is a principal ingredient in the Kahn-Kalai-Linial theorem.

For a subset of the unbiased Boolean hypercube of density $\alpha$, use normalized Fourier-Walsh transform coefficients. Applying Beckner's inequality with $\rho =1/\sqrt{3}$ gives $\Vert T_{\rho }{1}_A{\Vert }_2^2\le \Vert 1_A{\Vert }_{4/3}^2={\alpha }^{3/2}$. On levels at most two the weights ${\rho }^{2|S|}$ are at least $1/9$, giving the displayed bound. Parseval's identity gives total Fourier mass $\alpha$, so when $9\sqrt{\alpha }<1/2$ the higher levels contain strictly more than the lower levels.