The optimal hypercontractive constants for $\mathbb{Z}_3$ and biased Bernoulli random variables

TL;DR

This paper precisely determines the optimal hypercontractive constants for the cyclic group b3 and biased Bernoulli variables, revealing complex algebraic structures and phenomena like monotonicity and limit shapes.

Contribution

It provides explicit formulas for hypercontractive constants on b3 and introduces a novel approach based on critical extremizers, resolving longstanding open problems.

Findings

Explicit formulas for b3 hypercontractive constants.

Constants are algebraic numbers with complex minimal polynomials.

Numerical simulations reveal monotonicity and limit shape phenomena.

Abstract

We resolve a folklore problem of determining the optimal hypercontractive constants $r_{p,q}(\mathbb{Z}_3)$ for the cyclic group $\mathbb{Z}_3$ for all $1 < p < q < \infty$. More precisely, we have \[ r_{p,q}(\mathbb{Z}_3) = \frac{(1 + 2x)(1 - y)}{(1 + 2y)(1 - x)}, \] where $(x,y)$ is the unique solution in the open unit square $(0,1)\times (0,1)$ to the system of equations \begin{align*} \left\{ \begin{aligned} &\frac{1}{1+2x}\Big(\frac{1+2x^p}{3}\Big)^{\frac{1}{p}}=\frac{1}{1+2y}\Big(\frac{1+2y^q}{3}\Big)^{\frac{1}{q}},\\ &\frac{(1-x)(1-x^{p-1})}{1+2x^p}=\frac{(1-y)(1-y^{q-1})}{1+2y^q}. \end{aligned} \right. \end{align*} Consequently, for rational $p, q\in \mathbb{Q}$, the constants $r_{p,q}(\mathbb{Z}_3)$ are algebraic numbers which generally admit no radical expressions, since their often rather complicated minimal polynomials may have non-solvable Galois groups. Our formalism relies on a key observation: the existence of nontrivial critical extremizers. This approach can also be adapted to resolve a long-standing open problem -- determining all optimal $(p,q)$-hypercontractive constants for biased Bernoulli random variables, which are closely related to noise operators. Several noteworthy phenomena emerge from numerical simulations: the monotonicity of the hypercontractive constants in the parameters, and the appearance of intriguing limit shapes. These phenomena merit further investigation.