The lower dimensional slicing inequality for functions and related distance inequalities

Abstract

It was shown in [11] that for every origin-symmetric star body $K \subseteq \mathbb R^n$ of volume $1$, every even continuous probability density $f$ on $K$ and $1 \leq k \leq n-1$, there exists a subspace $F \subseteq \mathbb R^n$ of codimension $k$ such that \[ \int_{K \cap F} f \geq c^k (d_{\rm ovr}(K, \mathcal{BP}_k^n))^{-k} \] where $d_{\rm ovr}(K, \mathcal{BP}_k^n)$ is the outer volume ratio distance from $K$ to the class of generalized $k$-intersection bodies, and $c>0$ is a universal constant. The upper bound $d_{\rm ovr}(K, \mathcal{BP}_k^n) \leq c' \sqrt{n/k} \left(\log\left(\frac{en}k\right)\right)^{3/2}$ was established in [13] for every origin-symmetric convex body $K$. In this note we show that there exist an origin-symmetric convex body $K$ of volume $1$ and an even continuous probability density $f$ supported on $K$ such that for every subspace $F$ of codimension $k$, \[ \int_{K \cap F} f \leq \left( c \sqrt{\frac n{k \log(n)} } \right)^{-k}. \] As a consequence we obtain a lower bound for $d_{\rm ovr}(K, \mathcal{BP}_k^n)$ with $K$ a convex body, complementing the upper bound in \cite{koldobsky2011isomorphic}. This is \[c \sqrt{n/k} (\log(n))^{-1/2} \leq \sup_K d_{\rm ovr}(K, \mathcal{BP}_k^n) \leq c' \sqrt{n/k} \left(\log\left(\frac{en}k\right)\right)^{3/2}.\] The case $k=1$ was obtained previously in [5,6].