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Passing two probability distributions through the same Markov kernel cannot increase their relative entropy. For a kernel $K$,

Suppose $X\to Y\to Z$ is a Markov chain, so $I(X;Z\mid Y)=0$. The chain rule for mutual information givesand alsobecause conditional mutual information is nonnegative. Therefore $I(X;Z)\le I(X;Y)$. Similarly,while $I(X,Y;Z)=I(X;Z)+I(Y;Z\mid X)\ge I(X;Z)$, so $I(X;Z)\le I(Y;Z)$. These are the two data processing inequalities. In particular, applying any deterministic function or Markov kernel to either argument cannot increase mutual information.

Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.

Let $K(y\mid x)$ be a Markov kernel, and let $P_Y=PK$, $Q_Y=QK$ be the output probability distributions. Applying the log-sum inequality for each $y$ to $a_x=P(x)K(y\mid x)$ and $b_x=Q(x)K(y\mid x)$ givesSumming over $y$ and using ${\sum }_{y}K(y\mid x)=1$ yields the data processing inequality for relative entropy

Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.