Sharp convergence rates for averaged nonexpansive maps

We establish sharp estimates for the convergence rate of the Kranosel'ski\v{\i}-Mann fixed point iteration in general normed spaces, and we use them to show that the asymptotic regularity bound recently proved in [11] (Israel Journal of Mathematics 199(2), 757-772, 2014) with constant $1/\sqrt{\pi}$ is sharp and cannot be improved. To this end we consider the recursive bounds introduced in [3] (Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Fixed Point Theory and Applications, World Scientific Press, London, 27-66, 1992) which we reinterpret in terms of a nested family of optimal transport problems. We show that these bounds are tight by building a nonexpansive map $T:[0,1]^{\mathbb N}\to[0,1]^{\mathbb N}$ that attains them with equality, settling the main conjecture in [3]. The recursive bounds are in turn reinterpreted as absorption probabilities for an underlying Markov chain which is used to establish the tightness of the constant $1/\sqrt{\pi}$.