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A friend told me this interesting problem. It should be easy enough, but I cannot figure it out completely.

If $a, b \in \mathbb{R}, p \geq 2, \frac{1}{p} + \frac{1}{q} = 1$, then

$2(|a|^p + |b|^p) \leq |a + b|^p + |a - b|^p \leq 2^{p-1}(|a|^p + |b|^p)$

$|a + b|^p + |a - b|^p \leq 2^{p-1}(|a|^q + |b|^q)^{\frac{p}{q}}$

$2(|a|^p + |b|^p)^{\frac{q}{p}} \leq |a + b|^q + |a - b|^q$

And if $1 \leq p < 2$, we change the direction of the inequalities.

Could you explain how can one prove these?

I see that the second and the third should be reduced to the first (and so the case $1 \leq p < 2$): can you clarify the connection between these inequalities?

user62029
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1 Answers1

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Part 1

For the first inequation, $$\tag{1}\label{1} 2(|a|^p + |b|^p) \leq |a + b|^p + |a - b|^p \leq 2^{p-1}(|a|^p + |b|^p), \quad p\ge2, $$ the second inequality can be derived from the first one by the replacements $a\to a+b$ and $b\to a-b$. Thus, we concentrate on proving the first inequality, that is, $$\tag{2}\label{2} 2(|a|^p + |b|^p) \leq |a + b|^p + |a - b|^p. $$ We can obviously assume that $a\ne0$; if not, the inequality is trivially true. Without loss of generality, we also assume $|b|\le|a|$. Divide both side of \eqref{2} by $|a|$, and let $x:=b/a$ (for the case $|b|\ge|a|$, just divide by $|b|$ and let $x:=a/b$), then we only need to prove $$ 2(1+|x|^p) \le |1+x|^p+|1-x|^p \quad \text{for } |x|\le1. $$ Now it is reduced to the following problem by the symmetry, $$\tag{3}\label{3} 2(1+x^p) \le (1+x)^p+(1-x)^p \quad \text{for } 0\le x\le1. $$ See here for the proof of \eqref{3}.

Part 2

For the second inequation, $$\tag{4}\label{4} |a + b|^p + |a - b|^p \leq 2^{p-1}(|a|^q + |b|^q)^{\frac{p}{q}}, \quad p \geq 2, \frac{1}{p} + \frac{1}{q} = 1, $$ we only need to prove the following by the benefit of the second inequality in the first inequation \eqref{1}, $$ (|a|^q + |b|^q)^{\frac{1}{q}} \le (|a|^p + |b|^p)^{\frac{1}{p}} \quad \text{for } q\le p, $$ which is an immediate result of the decrease of $p$-norm in finite dimensions, for whose proof one may refer to here or here.

For the third inequation, $$ \big[2(|a|^p + |b|^p)\big]^{\frac{q}{p}} \leq |a + b|^q + |a - b|^q, $$ one may just make replacements $a\to (a+b)/2$ and $b\to (a-b)/2$ in the second inequation \eqref{4} and compute $$ |a|^p + |b|^p \le 2^{p-1} \bigg( \bigg| \frac{a+b}{2} \bigg|^q + \bigg| \frac{a-b}{2} \bigg|^q \bigg)^{\frac{p}{q}} = 2^{-1} ( | a+b |^q + | a-b |^q )^{\frac{p}{q}}, $$ as required.

Dreamer
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