An estimate for positive definite functions on finite abelian groups and its applications

Abstract: This paper concentrates on positive definite functions on finite abelian groups, which are central to harmonic analysis and related fields. By leveraging the group structure and employing Fourier analysis, we establish a lower bound for the second largest value of positive definite functions. For illustrative purposes, we present three applications of our lower bound: (a) We obtain both lower and upper bounds for arbitrary functions on finite abelian groups; (b) We derive lower bounds for the relaxation and mixing times of random walks on finite abelian groups. Notably, our bound for the relaxation time achieves a quadratic improvement over the previously known one; (c) We determine a new lower bound for the size of the sumset of two subsets of finite abelian groups.