Sharp Normalized Covariance Bounds and Constant-Stretch Correlated Sampling on the Hypersimplex

We establish the normalized covariance bound conjectured by Anari et al. (2026, Conjecture 3) for fixed-rank external-field measures. Let $d\ge2$ and $m\in[d-1]$. For $w\in(0,+\infty)^d$, let $\mathsf S$ be an $m$-subset of $[d]$ with rank-$m$ external-field law $\mathbb P(\mathsf S=S)=\frac{\prod_{