Three Candidate Plurality is Stablest for Small Correlations

TL;DR

This paper proves a structure theorem for noise stable partitions in Gaussian space, confirming the Plurality is Stablest Conjecture for three candidates under certain conditions and providing new variational proofs for related inequalities.

Contribution

It establishes a dimension reduction result for noise stable partitions and proves the Plurality is Stablest Conjecture for three candidates with fixed correlation, advancing understanding of optimal voting schemes.

Findings

Proves the Plurality is Stablest Conjecture for three candidates for all small correlations.

Provides a variational proof of Borell's Inequality.

Establishes a structure theorem for noise stable partitions in Gaussian space.

Abstract

Using the calculus of variations, we prove the following structure theorem for noise stable partitions: a partition of $n$-dimensional Euclidean space into $m$ disjoint sets of fixed Gaussian volumes that maximize their noise stability must be $(m-1)$-dimensional, if $m-1\leq n$. In particular, the maximum noise stability of a partition of $m$ sets in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ of fixed Gaussian volumes is constant for all $n$ satisfying $n\geq m-1$. From this result, we obtain: (i) A proof of the Plurality is Stablest Conjecture for $3$ candidate elections, for all correlation parameters $\rho$ satisfying $0<\rho<\rho_{0}$, where $\rho_{0}>0$ is a fixed constant (that does not depend on the dimension $n$), when each candidate has an equal chance of winning. (ii) A variational proof of Borell's Inequality (corresponding to the case $m=2$). The structure theorem answers a question of De-Mossel-Neeman and of Ghazi-Kamath-Raghavendra. Item (i) is the first proof of any case of the Plurality is Stablest Conjecture of Khot-Kindler-Mossel-O'Donnell (2005) for fixed $\rho$, with the case $\rho\to1^{-}$ being solved recently. Item (i) is also the first evidence for the optimality of the Frieze-Jerrum semidefinite program for solving MAX-3-CUT, assuming the Unique Games Conjecture. Without the assumption that each candidate has an equal chance of winning in (i), the Plurality is Stablest Conjecture is known to be false.