A Beckmann boundary form of Talagrand's conjecture on the discrete cube

Abstract

We introduce the Beckmann boundary of a Boolean function \[ \mathsf{B}(f)=\inf_{\operatorname{div} V=Lf}\mathbb E\|V(x)\|_2. \] Here \[ L=\sum_iD_i,\qquad D_i f(x)=\frac{f(x)-f(x^{\oplus i})}{2}, \] and $\operatorname{div} V(x)=\sum_i (V_{i}(x)-V_{i}(x^{\oplus i}))$. This nonlocal quantity is no larger than the usual two-sided, one-sided, colored, optimized colored, or optimized fractional colored boundaries. Nevertheless, every nonconstant Boolean $f$ satisfies \[ \mathsf{B}(f)\gtrsim \operatorname{Var}(f) \sqrt{\log\!\left(1+\frac{1}{\sum_i\operatorname{Inf}_i(f)^2}\right)}. \] We also prove strong one-sided fractional spectral estimates. If $A\subset\{-1,1\}^n$ and \[ h_{A}(x)=\#\{i:x\in A,\ x^{\oplus i}\notin A\}, \] then, for $0<\alpha<1$, \[ \sum_{S\ne\varnothing}|S|^\alpha\widehat{\mathbf 1_{A}}(S)^2 \lesssim_\alpha \mathbb E\omega_\alpha(h_{A}), \] where $\omega_\alpha(m)=\sqrt m$ for $\alpha<1/2$, $\omega_{1/2}(m)=\sqrt m\log(e+m)$, and $\omega_\alpha(m)=m^\alpha$ for $\alpha>1/2$. These profiles are sharp, up to $\alpha$-dependent constants, for majority. We also show that the comparison is genuinely nonreversible: an explicit quotient-cube family makes the optimized fractional, and hence optimized colored, boundary exceed $\mathsf{B}$ by a factor $\gtrsim\sqrt{\log n}$. We further obtain a driftless Bernstein-multiplier inequality.