Improved lower bounds for embeddings into l ₁

We improve upon recent lower bounds on the minimum distortion of embedding certain finite metric spaces into L1. In particular, we show that for every n ≥ 1, there is an n-point metric space of negative type that requires a distortion of ω(log log n) for such an embedding, implying the same lower bound on the integrality gap of a well-known semidefinite programming relaxation for sparsest cut. This result builds upon and improves the recent lower bound of (log log n) 1/6-o(1) due to Khot and Vishnoi [The unique games conjecture, integrality gap for cut problems and the embeddability of negative type metrics into l 1, in Proceedings of the 46th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 2005, pp. 53-62]. We also show that embedding the edit distance metric on {0, 1} n into L 1 requires a distortion of Ω(log n). This result improves a very recent (log n) 1/2-o(1) lower bound by Khot and Naor [Nonembeddability theorems via Fourier analysis, in Proceedings of the 46th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 2005, pp. 101-112]. © 2009 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.