Le Cam lower bound under absolute-error loss (${\max }_j{\mathbb{E}}_j|T-{\theta }_j|\ge \frac{\Delta }{2}(1-\mathrm{TV}(P_0,P_1))$)

For two observation laws $P_0,P_1$ at real parameters separated by $\Delta$, every estimator $T$ satisfies ${\max }_j{\mathbb{E}}_j|T-{\theta }_j|\ge \Delta (1-\mathrm{TV}(P_0,P_1))/2$. With common densities, the sum of the two risks is at least $\int \min (p_0,p_1)(|T-{\theta }_0|+|T-{\theta }_1|)$, at least $\Delta \int \min (p_0,p_1)=\Delta (1-\mathrm{TV})$ by the triangle inequality. Divide by two. The same proof works for any metric loss.

For $n$ independent observations with a normal distribution $N(\mu ,{\sigma }^2)$, $\sigma >0$ fixed, every estimator has ${\sup }_{\mu }{\mathbb{E}}_{\mu }|T-\mu |\ge \sigma /(4\sqrt{2n})$. Compare ${\mu }_0=0$ and ${\mu }_1=\sigma /\sqrt{2n}$: the joint Kullback-Leibler divergence is $1/4$, so the total variation–Hellinger–relative entropy inequality bounds total variation distance by $1/2$. Apply the Le Cam lower bound under absolute-error loss. Degenerate zero-noise laws do not satisfy a positive lower bound.