Bounds on the Poincar\'e constant for convolution measures

Abstract

We establish a Shearer-type inequality for the Poincar\'e constant, showing that the Poincar\'e constant corresponding to the convolution of a collection of measures can be nontrivially controlled by the Poincar\'e constants corresponding to convolutions of subsets of measures. This implies, for example, that the Poincar\'e constant is non-increasing along the central limit theorem. We also establish a dimension-free stability estimate for subadditivity of the Poincar\'e constant on convolutions which uniformly improves an earlier one-dimensional estimate of a similar nature by Johnson (2004). As a byproduct of our arguments, we find that the monotone properties of entropy, Fisher information and the Poincar\'e constant along the CLT find a common root in Shearer's inequality.