Discrete Poincaré inequalities and universal approximators for random graphs

Abstract

Nonlinear Poincaré inequalities are indispensable tools in the study of dimension reduction and low-distortion embeddings of graphs into metric spaces, and have found remarkable algorithmic applications. A basic open problem, posed by Jon Kleinberg (2013), asks whether the optimal nonlinear Poincaré constant for maps between two independent $3$-regular random graphs is dimension-free, i.e., independent of vertex-set sizes. We give a complete and affirmative resolution to Kleinberg's problem, also allowing for arbitrary graph degrees. As a corollary, we obtain a stochastic construction of $O(1)\text{-universal}$ approximators for random graphs, answering a question of Mendel and Naor.