Identify the hypercube graph with , joining two sets when their symmetric difference has size one. Write for the closed graph neighbourhood of , and for its radius- neighbourhood in Hamming distance. In the simplicial order on the discrete cube, smaller sets come first, with lexicographic order within each rank: the smallest differing coordinate belongs to the earlier set. Let be the first vertices in this order. Harper theorem is
Equivalently, minimizes the external vertex boundary at fixed size. We will also obtain for every integer .
Here is a complete proof by simplicial section compression. First note two properties of the simplicial order on the discrete cube. Its restriction to either face obtained by fixing one coordinate is the corresponding order on the smaller hypercube graph. Also, the closed graph neighbourhood of an initial segment is an initial segment. To verify the latter, a nonempty initial segment contains every level below its last level , and a lexicographic prefix at level . For , its closed graph neighbourhood contains every set of size at most , and its only further members are the upper shadow of . An -set lies in this upper shadow exactly when its lexicographically earliest -subset lies in . That earliest subset is obtained by deleting the largest element. These earliest subsets vary monotonically in lexicographic order, so the upper shadow is another lexicographic prefix. For , the closed graph neighbourhood of is the union of levels zero and one. The empty initial segment causes no exception.
Induct on , with immediate. Fix a coordinate and write the sections of as , deleting from the latter section. Replace them by the initial segments with , . The sections of the old closed graph neighbourhood are
By induction their sizes are at least and , respectively. These are exactly the sizes of the new sections, because both sets in each new union are initial segments and hence nested. Thus simplicial section compression preserves size and never enlarges the closed graph neighbourhood.
Repeatedly compress any section that is not already an initial segment. Every change strictly reduces the sum of the global simplicial positions of the included vertices. This nonnegative integer decreases only finitely often, so the process ends at a family whose sections in every coordinate are initial segments. If itself is an initial segment, the induction is complete. Otherwise choose the earliest absent vertex and the latest present vertex , with . They cannot agree in any coordinate: agreement would put them in one compressed section, where an earlier absent vertex cannot precede a later present one. Hence . Nor can a vertex lie between them: if is present, pairing it with would force ; if absent, pairing it with would force . Thus are consecutive, and is obtained from by replacing its last vertex with the next vertex .
There are only two possibilities for these terminal families for simplicial section compression. If , consecutiveness makes the last -set and the first -set. Complementarity forces , and . For , the corresponding contains all sets of size at most except , and additionally . Every -set has at least two -subsets, so at least one belongs to . The missing has a -subset in . Consequently contains every set of size at most , which is exactly .
If , then . Since are complementary, the smaller one contains coordinate . Consecutiveness forces to be the last -set containing , and the first -set avoiding :
The initial segment consists of all sets of size less than and all -sets containing . Its closed graph neighbourhood contains all sets of size at most and all -sets containing . For , each such -set has -subsets containing , so removing only leaves one in . All sets of size at most are still in , because all levels below belong to . Hence again . For , the two families are related by exchanging coordinates and both have the whole as their closed graph neighbourhood. These comparisons finish the induction and prove Harper theorem.
For the radius- version, repeatedly use the one-step result. At each step the comparison family remains an initial segment, and its closed graph neighbourhood is monotone in its size. If , applying Harper theorem to therefore gives . Induction on proves the asserted extension.
A Lévy family of graphs has vanishing concentration of measure functions after distances have been scaled by the graph diameter. More explicitly, for connected finite graphs of diameter , use normalized graph distance and uniform probability measure. For every fixed , require
For this normalization is normalized Hamming distance , since its diameter is .
If , the corresponding initial segment contains the Hamming ball about of radius . The radius- version of Harper theorem implies
Use the precise Hoeffding inequality for . One can also derive this estimate directly: the moment-generating function of is ; the exponential Markov inequality followed by minimization at gives the bound. With , we have . Thus, whenever ,
This proves that the hypercube graphs form a Lévy family of graphs. The stronger fixed-positive-mass formulation follows as well. For any , choose with . The Chebyshev inequality for , whose variance is , makes the Hamming ball of radius have fewer than vertices. An initial segment of size at least contains that ball. Enlarging by and using the same Hoeffding inequality gives a complement proportion tending to zero uniformly over all such . The normalization matters: with unscaled unit Hamming distance, cubes do not satisfy the metric version at every fixed radius; for a radius below one, a half-cube has no enlargement.
Equality in Harper theorem does not determine a down-set up to isomorphism. In , take
This is a down-set of size nine. Its closed graph neighbourhood contains every set of size at most two, because all singletons belong to . Every triple contains an edge of the four-cycle among the listed pairs, so every triple also belongs to . The four-element set does not. Hence .
The size-nine simplicial order on the discrete cube initial segment is all sets of size at most one together with the pairs . Every triple contains one of these pairs, and the four-element set is again absent from its closed graph neighbourhood. Its neighbourhood therefore also has size , proving extremality of . Nevertheless the induced graphs are not isomorphic: in , the empty set has degree four, the four singletons have degree three, and the four pairs have degree two. The initial segment has two vertices of degree four, namely and . Since a graph automorphism preserves induced degree of a vertex, no automorphism of the cube can carry one family to the other. This gives nonunique down-set extremizers for Harper theorem even under the stronger test of induced graph isomorphism.
Write and let be the triangle count in a binomial random graph. For every three-element set of vertices, let be the indicator random variable that its three edges are present. Then
For two distinct triples , their indicator random variables are independent random variables unless they share an edge. Sharing just one vertex still leaves the sets of relevant edges disjoint. If they share an edge, their union has five edges, and therefore
There are unordered pairs of distinct triangles in a graph sharing an edge: choose that edge, and then choose their two additional vertices. The variance of a sum consequently gives the exact formula
For sufficiently large , the hypothesis ensures , so . Dropping negative terms and simplifying the binomial coefficients,
Here as well. The event implies . Applying the Chebyshev inequality from part (i) gives the requested conclusion:
Thus the triangle count is concentrated around its expectation throughout this range of the binomial random graph.
Let be a real random variable with finite expectation and finite variance . The Chebyshev inequality is
The proof is the pointwise comparison
Taking expectations and using the definition of variance gives
Division by the positive number proves the Chebyshev inequality, including the case . Equivalently, this is the Markov inequality applied to the nonnegative random variable .
Let . Since the alphabet is finite, these independent and identically distributed random variables are finite almost surely, have mean , and have finite variance . Also
The weak law of large numbers says that this average converges in probability to . Thus
One can also state the quantitative Chebyshev inequality bound . If , every word of positive probability is in the typical set. This is the finite-alphabet asymptotic equipartition property.
Fix and . By the asymptotic equipartition property, all sufficiently large satisfy . For any epsilon-sufficient set ,
Each word in this intersection has probability at most . Hence
which gives the minimum size of a sufficient set for an IID source:
The Chebyshev inequality used above supplies the sufficient quantitative condition . No assumption that itself is a typical set is needed; its intersection with one provides the bound.
The Chebyshev inequality states that for a random variable with finite variance and ,
Write . The ratio in the hypothesis presupposes for all sufficiently large . On the event , the deviation from the mean equals . Thus the Chebyshev inequality with gives
This is the second moment method. It uses only the stipulated relative variance bound; no assumption that triangle indicators are independent is needed.
For an additive arithmetic function , one standard form of the Turán-Kubilius inequality uses
It states, with an absolute constant,
For real , this also bounds the variance under the discrete uniform distribution, because centering at the actual expectation minimizes the mean square.
For the prime omega function, . The Mertens theorem for reciprocal primes states . The contribution of higher prime powers is bounded by , as proved in 1(a). It follows that and . Writing , the Turán-Kubilius inequality and Chebyshev inequality therefore yield
The bounded error in is absorbed by, for example, using the threshold around for sufficiently large .
For the multiplication table problem, call a pair good when and . The preceding Chebyshev inequality excludes only pairs by either of the first two conditions. For the greatest common divisor condition, linearity of expectation under uniform sampling of the two coordinates gives
Markov inequality therefore excludes only another pairs.
The prime factors of a product form the union of those of its factors. Consequently, for every good pair,
On the other hand, apply the proved concentration estimate at . Since , for large every integer with is exceptional there. There are only such integers. Products of good pairs lie in this exceptional set; products having only bad representations are at most as numerous as the bad pairs. This proves the multiplication-table upper bound, using distinct prime factors alone:
The printed assertion is false as a supremum bound uniform over shrinking bandwidths. The supplied hint proves a pointwise stochastic order with constants uniform in . Taking the supremum inside the probability changes the problem: a growing number of spatial windows produces a logarithmic cost. We first establish the valid consequence of the hint, then give a counterexample satisfying the printed assumptions.
For , let , and . The Invariant distribution of an Itô diffusion has a probability density function bounded above and bounded away from zero on the required compact interval. Choosing therefore gives constants such that , uniformly for and .
For the centered function , . Outside , . The given second-moment estimate and the Chebyshev inequality yield
On the event , the drift coefficient contributes an average whose error is at most , by Hölder continuity. The Itô isometry and stationarity give . Another use of the Chebyshev inequality proves
This also accounts for the zero-denominator convention through the first exceptional event. The bound proves pointwise , uniformly in the location's tail probabilities. It supplies no bound for the probability of a supremum over all locations.
For an explicit counterexample, take and the bounded globally Lipschitz function
It has Lipschitz constant , exponent , and satisfies the inward-drift conditions with , . The stochastic differential equation has a unique strong solution of a stochastic differential equation. Its Invariant distribution of an Itô diffusion has density
The exponent is zero on , equals when , and equals outside . This verifies integrability, positivity and a constant density on the central interval. Start the Itô diffusion in this Invariant distribution of an Itô diffusion to obtain the required stationary process.
Set and choose windows with centers , . Their intervals are disjoint and lie in , where the drift is zero. Write
Then whenever . The same occupation bound as above gives for . With , a union bound and the Chebyshev inequality imply
The quadratic variations are , and the cross quadratic covariations vanish since the windows are disjoint. Each clock tends to infinity almost surely: for any fixed window, the occupation estimate at times , followed by the Borel-Cantelli lemmas, gives . The Knight theorem for orthogonal martingales therefore represents using independent standard Brownian motions . This theorem is applied to the finite collection for each ; no growing-dimensional central limit theorem is being assumed.
On the preceding clock event, compare each time-changed Brownian motion with its value at deterministic time . The Brownian reflection principle and a union bound show that, for every fixed ,
This bound does not require the Brownian motions to be independent of their clocks. In particular, in probability. The variables are independent random variables. Their Gaussian maximum exceeds with probability tending to one: for , integration of the normal density over gives , and hence
Since on the clock event, it follows that, for some ,
But for this bandwidth. Thus the error after subtraction of and multiplication by is not bounded in probability, contradicting the printed stochastic order. The valid pointwise bound above is provable; the uniform shrinking-bandwidth assertion is not. This counterexample shows why a uniform rate needs at least a enlargement of the noise scale. If is instead held fixed and constants may depend on , this counterexample does not contradict that different interpretation.
Put and . The constant-in-time coefficient on is previsible, so the ratio minus is . Since , continuity and the dominated convergence theorem imply
The Itô isometry gives . For , use the Chebyshev inequality and the normal distribution of to obtain
First let , then ; the normal distribution has no atom at zero. This proves
No independence between and the denominator is needed.
The first estimate suggested by the hint is valid: Brownian scaling and the Gamma function give . The second hint requires care about the placement of its expectation: with , the interpretation is correct by the Jensen inequality and the Itô isometry, whereas the interpretation is false with constant . For the latter interpretation, the Burkholder-Davis-Gundy inequality supplies a constant instead. One can see the obstruction with a Brownian motion stopped on exiting : if is that Brownian exit time, then , , and strict Jensen inequality gives .
This obstruction also survives the continuity condition on . On a long finite interval approximate by a continuous adapted process equal to until and decreasing linearly to during the next units of time, and take its initial value to be by inserting a short continuous ramp before starting the exit experiment. The Itô isometry controls these approximations, and letting the interval length tend to infinity recovers the strict inequality above; hence some bounded continuous adapted example also violates the latter interpretation with constant . The direct proof avoids relying on this ambiguous hint.
Let be the indicator random variable of . Then , so linearity of expectation gives
Using variance of a sum and
we obtain
For the circular array, let indicate that bulbs and are both on, with indices read modulo . Then . Non-neighbouring indicators are independent, while
There are individual terms and ordered neighbouring pairs in the double covariance sum, so
The event is exactly . If , Markov inequality gives
If , then implies . By Chebyshev inequality,
Therefore in the second regime.
The Chebyshev inequality states that for a random variable with finite variance and every ,
Indeed, Markov inequality applied to the nonnegative variable gives
The sum has the binomial distribution, so
For fixed this is a finite sum of polynomial functions of , hence is a polynomial.
Put
by part a. Double-counting divisibility gives the first moment of the prime omega function:
Moreover,
so
Expanding the square and using the given bound now gives the Turán normal-order theorem for distinct prime divisors estimate
By the Chebyshev inequality, the number of for which
is . Discard the integers below . For ,
and . Hence, for all sufficiently large , every remaining integer counted in the question also satisfies the preceding inequality. Therefore
Track on the lifted integer line the coordinate refreshed at each step. It is a random walk with right-step probability and left-step probability . Every visited residue modulo has had its bit replaced by an independent fair bit. Consequently the first time all residues have been visited is a strong stationary time for this shift-refresh chain on a hypercube.
For the upper bound, reaching level visits every residue, so the refresh time is at most . The supplied moments give
For any sequence with , Chebyshev inequality and the strong-stationary-time bound imply
For the lower bound, choose integers such that
and consider . Its supplied mean is and its variance is ; after replacing by a sequence with , take for example . This satisfies the displayed scale separation, and the supplied moment bounds show
Before that exit, the visited interval has length less than , so at least coordinates retain their initial values.
Start the chain from the all-zero vector. Conditional on the explored path, the number of one-bits is binomial with at most trials, whereas under stationarity it is . Since , standard binomial concentration separates these two laws; for instance the event
has probability tending to one for the chain and to zero under . Therefore
The transition from one to zero occurs in an window around , proving total-variation cutoff with cutoff time .
Chebyshev inequality states that, for a random variable of finite variance and any ,
Let count triangles, where ranges over the three-element vertex sets and is the corresponding indicator random variable. Then
Two distinct triangle indicators are independent unless their triangles share an edge. There are
unordered pairs sharing an edge, and each covariance is
Therefore
It follows that
when . Chebyshev's inequality now gives
Hence
as summarized by the triangle count in a binomial random graph.
Let and be independent. The displayed Bernstein polynomial is
Given , uniform continuity of supplies such that changing both coordinates by less than changes by less than . If , then Chebyshev inequality and
give, uniformly in ,
Thus uniformly.
Each is a polynomial, whose iterated integrals may be interchanged term by term. Uniform convergence permits passage to the limit in both iterated integrals, proving the asserted continuous-function form of Fubini's theorem.
Now suppose every monomial moment of vanishes. By linearity,
for every two-variable polynomial . The just-proved Bernstein approximation gives polynomials uniformly. Therefore
so . Statement (i) is true.