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Consider two functions, $A_1(z)$ and $A_2(z)$, both positive and bounded away from zero on a finite interval. I want to compare the two products of integrals \begin{equation} \left(\int \frac{1}{A_1(z)} dz\right)\left(\int \frac{1}{A_2(z)} dz\right) \Box \left(\int \frac{A_1(z) + A_2(z)}{A_1(z) A_2(z)} dz\right) \left(\int \frac{1}{A_1(z)+A_2(z)} dz \right)\end{equation}

where $\Box$ is either $\geq$ or $\leq$ (or neither, if the two sides do not possess a strict inequality). I have a suspicion from the biological context that led to the integrals that the LHS should always be larger than the RHS, but don't know how to show it. Using Cauchy-Schwarz I was able to lower bound both sides by the same quantity $\int \frac{1}{\sqrt{A_1(z) A_2(z)}}dz$, which is obviously not helpful.

Martin R
  • 128,226

1 Answers1

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The left-hand side is indeed always greater than or equal to the right-hand side, i.e. the inequality holds with $\Box = \ge$, as you suspected. With the substitution $f = 1/A_1$, $g= 1/A_2$ the statement becomes:

Let $f, g: [a, b] \to (0, \infty)$ be (Riemann or Lebesgue) integrable. Then $$ \left( \int_a^b f(x) \, dx \right) \cdot \left( \int_a^b g(x) \, dx \right) \ge \left( \int_a^b \frac{f(x) g(x)}{f(x)+g(x)} \, dx \right) \cdot \left( \int_a^b (f(x)+g(x)) \, dx \right) \, . $$

As shown in Integral Ineq. 2 on AoPS, this is a consequence of Jensen's integral inequality for the concave function $B(u, v) = \frac{uv}{u+v}$. For those (like me) who are more familiar with Jensen's inequality for convex or concave functions of a single variable, here is a short proof:

Set $$ F = \frac{1}{b-a}\int_a^b f(x) \, dx \, , \, G = \frac{1}{b-a}\int_a^b g(x) \, dx \, . $$ If $F=0$ then $f(x) = 0$ a.e. on $[a, b]$ and both sides of the inequality are zero, similar if $G= 0$, so we can assume that $F > 0$ and $G > 0$.

$B(u, v) = \frac{uv}{u+v}$ is concave on $(0, \infty) \times (0, \infty)$ (see for example here), so that $$ B(u, v) \le B(F, G) + \alpha (u-F) + \beta (v-G) $$ for all $u, v > 0$, where $\alpha = B_u(F, G)$ and $\beta = B_v(F, G)$ are the partial derivatives of $B$ at the point $(F, G)$. For $u =f(x)$, $v=g(x)$ one gets $$ \frac{f(x)g(x)}{f(x)+g(x)} \le \frac{FG}{F+G} + \alpha(f(x)-F) + \beta(g(x) - G) \, , $$ and integrating this over $[a, b]$ gives $$ \int_a^b \frac{f(x)g(x)}{f(x)+g(x)} \le (b-a) \frac{FG}{F+G} = \frac{\left( \int_a^b f(x) \, dx \right) \cdot \left( \int_a^b g(x) \, dx \right)}{\int_a^b (f(x)+g(x)) \, dx} \, . $$

Martin R
  • 128,226