Moments of the Cram\'er transform of log-concave probability measures

Abstract

Let $\mu$ be a centered log-concave probability measure on ${\mathbb R}^n$ and let $\Lambda_{\mu}^{\ast}$ denote the Cram\'{e}r transform of $\mu$, i.e. $\Lambda_{\mu}^{\ast}(x)=\sup\{\langle x,\xi\rangle-\Lambda_{\mu}(\xi):\xi\in\mathbb{R}^n\}$ where $\Lambda_{\mu}$ is the logarithmic Laplace transform of $\mu$. We show that $\mathbb{E}_{\mu}\left[\exp\left(\frac{c_1}{n}\Lambda_{\mu}^{\ast }\right)\right]<\infty $ where $c_1>0$ is an absolute constant. In, particular, $\Lambda_{\mu}^{\ast}$ has finite moments of all orders. The proof, which is based on the comparison of certain families of convex bodies associated with $\mu$, implies that $\|\Lambda_{\mu}^{\ast}\|_{L^2(\mu)}\leqslant c_2n\ln n$. The example of the uniform measure on the Euclidean ball shows that this estimate is optimal with respect to $n$ as the dimension $n$ grows to infinity.