A proof of Fill's spectral gap conjecture

Abstract: We prove a quantitative lower bound on the spectral gap of the adjacent-transposition chain on the symmetric group with a general probability vector. As a consequence, among all regular probability vectors, the spectral gap of the transition matrix is minimised by the uniform probability vector, i.e., $p_{i,j}\equiv {\frac 1 2}$ for all $i \ne j$. A second consequence is a uniform polynomial bound on the inverse spectral gap in the regular case. This resolves a longstanding conjecture known as Fill's Gap Problem.