On the Signed Small Ball Inequality

This paper is a companion to our prior paper arXiv:0705.4619 on the `Small Ball Inequality in All Dimensions. In it, we address a more restrictive inequality, and obtain a non-trivial, explicit bound, using a single essential estimate from our prior paper. The prior bound was not explicit and much more involved.

On the Small Ball Inequality in All Dimensions

Let h_R denote an L ^{infty} normalized Haar function adapted to a dyadic rectangle R contained in the unit cube in dimension d. We establish a non-trivial lower bound on the L^{infty} norm of the `hyperbolic sums $$ sum _{|R|=2 ^{-n}} alpha(R) h_R (x) $$ The lower bound is non-trivial in that we improve the average case bound by n^{eta} for some positive eta, a function of dimension d. As far as the authors know, this is the first result of this type in dimension 4 and higher. This question is related to Conjectures in (1) Irregularity of Distributions, (2) Approximation Theory and (3) Probability Theory. The method of proof of this paper gives new results on these conjectures in all dimensions 4 and higher. This paper builds upon prior work of Jozef Beck, from 1989, and first two authors from 2006. These results were of the same nature, but only in dimension 3.