Bounding the norm of a log-concave vector via thin-shell estimates
Abstract
Chaining techniques show that if X is an isotropic log-concave random vector in Rn and Gamma is a standard Gaussian vector then E |X| < C n1/4 E |Gamma| for any norm |*|, where C is a universal constant. Using a completely different argument we establish a similar inequality relying on the thin-shell constant sigman = sup ((var|X|)1/2 ; X isotropic and log-concave on Rn). In particular, we show that if the thin-shell conjecture sigman = O(1) holds, then n1/4 can be replaced by log (n) in the inequality. As a consequence, we obtain certain bounds for the mean-width, the dual mean-width and the isotropic constant of an isotropic convex body. In particular, we give an alternative proof of the fact that a positive answer to the thin-shell conjecture implies a positive answer to the slicing problem, up to a logarithmic factor.