Differentiate with and a changing exponent. The derivative is . Apply the logarithmic Sobolev inequality to and the power inequality for symmetric Markov energies. Choosing makes the upper bound zero.
Use the joint energy convention
On the generator domain it is . The symmetric Feller semigroup has symmetric two-point measure , with both marginals equal to . Expanding the product of increments gives the finite-time identity
for real functions. This supplies a proof that works for a general symmetric Markov kernel, without assuming a diffusion chain rule.
For , Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives
Interchanging gives the same inequality in the other order. Apply it with , integrate against , and take . This proves the power inequality for symmetric Markov energies
Initially take bounded nonnegative functions in the form domain. On their bounded range, the power maps are Lipschitz; their finite-time squared-increment energies are therefore bounded by a constant times that of . This puts the powers in the form domain and makes both joint energy limits well defined. Truncation gives the corresponding extended-energy interpretation when needed. In particular the proof applies to the bounded positive functions used below.
Normalize the logarithmic Sobolev inequality as
Start with a bounded bounded away from zero, and put , and . Positivity and preservation of constants keep within the same positive bounds. Symmetry realizes as a self-adjoint contraction semigroup on , so for its orbit lies in the generator domain and ; this justifies the following differentiation away from zero.
Differentiate both the evolving function and exponent:
Since , it follows that
Apply the logarithmic Sobolev inequality to , and then the joint energy inequality:
Therefore
The specified exponent satisfies and . Thus the right side is zero and the evolving norm is nonincreasing. Integrating from a positive time and letting gives
Here the initial limit follows from strong continuity, boundedness of and , and .
For a bounded nonnegative , apply the estimate to and let . For arbitrary , truncate to bounded nonnegative functions. Their images converge in to ; an almost-everywhere convergent subsequence and Fatou lemma give the same estimate for that limit. Positivity of the Markov kernel gives , also for complex , so
This proves that the logarithmic Sobolev inequality implies hypercontractivity, with the numerical exponent matched to the stated joint-energy normalization.