Cubic-Root Gaussian Approximation under Unrestricted Covariance

Abstract

For Gaussian approximation over high-dimensional rectangles under unrestricted covariance, Chernozhukov et al. (2023b) conjectured that the $n^{-1/4}$ rate, up to logarithmic factors, is near-optimal. We show that, under the coordinatewise subexponential condition with scale $B_n$ and the marginal variance lower bound condition with constant $b$ in Chernozhukov et al. (2023b), the approximation error in dimension $d$ is bounded by \begin{align*} C_b\min\left\{ 1,\, \left(\frac{B_n^2}{n}\right)^{1/3}\{\log(2dn)\}^{7/3} + \frac{B_n}{\sqrt n}\{\log(2dn)\}^{5/2} \right\}. \end{align*} In particular, for bounded $B_n$ and polynomial dimension, the new bound is $n^{-1/3}$ and therefore falsifies the polynomial-dimensional $n^{-1/4}$ near-optimality conjecture. The proof uses a two-stage interpolation and a rank-free matrix-weighted Gaussian surface bound, which may be of independent interest. The initial proof attempt was generated by ChatGPT 5.6 Pro (OpenAI) and subsequently corrected and rewritten by the authors. The machine-checked Lean formalization of the proof can be found at the GitHub repository (https://github.com/WeihanZhang2001/cubic-root-gaussian-approximation-under-unrestricted-covariance).

52 pages, 1 table