Remove polylogarithmic slack in attainable two-point rates
Sourced from the work of Spencer Compton, Gregory Valiant
§ Problem Statement
Setup
Let be the class of all probability distributions on such that has a density of the form
where , is a probability measure on an index set , and for every , is a probability density on that is symmetric and log-concave about (equivalently, for all , and is concave on its support). Then each component has mean , so is well-defined. In the adaptive estimation model, one observes with unknown , and an estimator is any measurable map .
For distributions on , define squared Hellinger distance by , where dominates both and . For , define the local Hellinger modulus at by
(The constant can be replaced by any fixed number in at the cost of universal constant changes.)
Unsolved Problem
Does there exist an estimator sequence and universal constants such that for every and every ,
with no extra multiplicative polylogarithmic factor (for example, no factor of the form )?
§ Discussion
§ Significance & Implications
The paper’s benchmark is near-attainment up to polylogarithmic factors, leaving open whether exact constant-factor attainability is possible. Resolving this would clarify whether the remaining gap is information-theoretic or an artifact of current methods. This entry treats the question as open based on the cited source.
§ Known Partial Results
Compton et al. (2025): The paper gives a near-linear-time, parameter-free estimator with guarantees matching the two-point modulus up to polylogarithmic factors over a broad log-concave-mixture location class; it does not claim exact constant-factor matching. Open-status annotation here is dated 2026-02-17 and may be outdated without a dedicated follow-up literature check.
§ References
Attainability of Two-Point Testing Rates for Finite-Sample Location Estimation
Spencer Compton, Gregory Valiant (2025)
Annals of Statistics (to appear)
📍 arXiv:2502.05730v3, Section 6 (Discussion), open-questions paragraph on removing polylogarithmic slack in adaptive attainability (see the explicit open-question statement in that section).
Source paper where this problem appears.