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On a Conjecture of Feige for Discrete Log-Concave Distributions

Probability 2023-09-20 v2

Abstract

A remarkable conjecture of Feige (2006) asserts that for any collection of nn independent non-negative random variables X1,X2,,XnX_1, X_2, \dots, X_n, each with expectation at most 11, P(X<E[X]+1)1e, \mathbb{P}(X < \mathbb{E}[X] + 1) \geq \frac{1}{e}, where X=i=1nXiX = \sum_{i=1}^n X_i. In this paper, we investigate this conjecture for the class of discrete log-concave probability distributions and we prove a strengthened version. More specifically, we show that the conjectured bound 1/e1/e holds when XiX_i's are independent discrete log-concave with arbitrary expectation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2208.12702,
  title  = {On a Conjecture of Feige for Discrete Log-Concave Distributions},
  author = {Abdulmajeed Alqasem and Heshan Aravinda and Arnaud Marsiglietti and James Melbourne},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.12702},
  year   = {2023}
}

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11 pages