Information inequalities for the estimation of principal components

We provide lower bounds for the estimation of the eigenspaces of a covariance operator. These information inequalities are non-asymptotic and can be applied to any sequence of eigenvalues. In the important case of the eigenspace of the $d$ leading eigenvalues, the lower bounds match non-asymptotic upper bounds based on the empirical covariance operator. Our approach relies on a van Trees inequality for equivariant models, with the reference measure being the Haar measure on the orthogonal group, combined with large deviations techniques to design optimal prior densities.