The quantum hashing bound guarantees that rates up to $1-H(p_I, p_X, p_Y, p_Z)$ are achievable for memoryless Pauli channels, but it is not generally tight. A known way to improve achievable rates for certain asymmetric Pauli channels is to apply a small inner stabilizer code to a few channel uses, decode, and treat the resulting logical noise as an induced Pauli channel; reapplying the hashing argument to this induced channel can beat the baseline hashing bound. We generalize this induced-channel viewpoint to arbitrary stabilizer codes used purely as channel transforms. Given any $ [\![ n, k ]\!] $ stabilizer generator set, we construct a full symplectic tableau, compute the induced joint distribution of logical Pauli errors and syndromes under the physical Pauli channel, and obtain an achievable rate via a hashing bound with decoder side information. We perform a structured search over small transforms and report instances that improve the baseline hashing bound for a family of Pauli channels with skewed and independent errors studied in prior work.

We present ‘Revelio’, a real-world screen-camera communication system leveraging temporal flicker fusion in the OKLAB color space. Using spatially-adaptive flickering and encoding information in pixel region shapes, Revelio achieves visually imperceptible data embedding while remaining robust against noise, asynchronicity, and distortions in screen-camera channels, ensuring reliable decoding by standard smartphone cameras. The decoder, driven by a two-stage neural network, uses a weighted differential accumulator for precise frame detection and symbol recognition. Initial experiments demonstrate Revelio’s effectiveness in interactive television, offering an unobtrusive method for meta-information transmission.

We propose an approach to understand and exploit Polarization-Adjusted Convolutional (PAC) Codes that is directly tied to decoders with memory, specifically Successive Cancellation List (SCL) decoding. The crux of our approach is to use a modified Density Evolution Gaussian Approximation (DEGA) to account for errors in the decoding process and accurately track the path metrics (PMs) likely to incur decoding errors. Our approach not only explains the benefits provided by the use of the rate one precoding, but also provides new insight into why certain information sets perform well under PAC. We leverage the approach to design new information sets, and in particular, we design a$($128,42,$L=8)$code that offers half a$\text{dB}$gain over the state-of-the-art at a Frame Error Rate (FER) of$\overline{1}0^{-3}$and outperforms the Reed-Muller (RM) set with$L=32$. We also draw connections between our approach and works studying the minimum weight of PAC codes.

Motivated by applications to low-latency secret key generation in physical-layer security, we study Polarization-Adjusted Convolutional (PAC) codes for source coding with side information. Source PAC codes operate in a dual manner to channel PAC codes by introducing a rate-one convolutional code after the polarization transform. The decoding of source PAC codes requires a careful scheduling of the successive cancellation decoder and a careful optimization of the rate profiling. Our empirical results demonstrate the improved performance of source PAC codes over regular polar codes using Successive Cancellation List (SCL) decoding. We illustrate the performance in terms for key generation rate in a secret-key generation setup over an Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel, suggesting that PAC codes could improve the performance of physical-layer security schemes at short blocklength.

Communication in integrated circuits faces two major impediments: inter-wire capacitive coupling and noise. Coding can be used to address both these problems. So-called crosstalk-avoidance codes mitigate capacitive coupling, and traditional error-correction codes introduce resilience against channel errors. Unfortunately, crosstalk-avoidance and error-correction codes cannot be combined in a straightforward manner. On the one hand, crosstalk-avoidance encoding followed by error-correction encoding destroys the crosstalk-avoidance property. On the other hand, error-correction encoding followed by crosstalk-avoidance encoding causes the crosstalk-avoidance decoder to fail in the presence of errors. Existing approaches circumvent this difficulty by using additional bus wires to protect the parities generated from the output of the error-correction encoder, and are therefore inefficient. In this paper, we propose a novel joint crosstalk-avoidance and error-correction coding and decoding scheme that provides higher bus transmission rates compared with existing approaches. Our joint approach carefully embeds the parities such that the crosstalk-avoidance property is preserved. We analyze the rate and minimum distance of the proposed scheme. We also provide a density evolution analysis and predict iterative decoding thresholds for reliable communication under random bus erasures. This density evolution analysis is nonstandard, since the crosstalk-avoidance constraints are inherently nonlinear.

Consider a binary linear code of length N, minimum distance dmin, transmission over the binary erasure channel with parameter 00 if the minimum distance is large. In particular the width of the transition is of order O(1/√dmin). We strengthen this result by showing that under suitable conditions on the weight distribution of the code, the transition width can be as small as O(1/N1/2-κ), for any κ > 0, even if the minimum distance of the code is not linear. This condition applies e.g., to Reed-Mueller codes. Since O(1/N1/2) is the smallest transition possible for any code, we speak of “almost” optimal scaling. We emphasize that the width of the transition says nothing about the location of the transition. Therefore this result has no bearing on whether a code is capacity-achieving or not. As a second contribution, we present a new estimate on the derivative of the EXIT function, the proof of which is based on the Blowing-Up Lemma.

We introduce a new approach to proving that a sequence of deterministic linear codes achieves capacity on an erasure channel under maximum a posteriori decoding. Rather than relying on the precise structure of the codes, our method exploits code symmetry. In particular, the technique applies to any sequence of linear codes where the blocklengths are strictly increasing, the code rates converge, and the permutation group of each code is doubly transitive. In other words, we show that symmetry alone implies near-optimal performance. An important consequence of this result is that a sequence of Reed-Muller codes with increasing block length and converging rate achieves capacity. This possibility has been suggested previously in the literature but it has only been proven for cases where the limiting code rate is 0 or 1. Moreover, these results extend naturally to all affine-invariant codes and, thus, to extended primitive narrow-sense BCH codes. This also resolves, in the affirmative, the existence question for capacity-achieving sequences of binary cyclic codes. The primary tools used in the proof are the sharp threshold property for symmetric monotone Boolean functions and the area theorem for extrinsic information transfer functions.

We consider the effect of log-likelihood ratio saturation on the belief-propagation decoding of low-density parity-check codes. Saturation is commonly done in practice and is known to have a significant effect on the error-floor performance. Our focus is on threshold analysis and the stability of density evolution. We analyze the decoder for standard low-density parity-check code ensembles and show that belief-propagation decoding generally degrades gracefully with saturation. Stability of density evolution is, on the other hand, rather strongly affected by saturation, and the asymptotic qualitative effect of saturation is similar to reduction by one of variable-node degree. We also describe conditions under which the block-error threshold for saturated belief-propagation decoding equals the bit-error threshold.

The question whether RM codes are capacity-achieving is a long-standing open problem in coding theory that was recently answered in the affirmative for transmission over erasure channels [1], [2]. Remarkably, the proof does not rely on specific properties of RM codes, apart from their symmetry. Indeed, the main technical result consists in showing that any sequence of linear codes, with doubly-transitive permutation groups, achieves capacity on the memoryless erasure channel under bit-MAP decoding. Thus, a natural question is what happens under block-MAP decoding. In [1], [2], by exploiting further symmetries of the code, the bit-MAP threshold was shown to be sharp enough so that the block erasure probability also converges to 0. However, this technique relies heavily on the fact that the transmission is over an erasure channel. We present an alternative approach to strengthen results regarding the bit-MAP threshold to block-MAP thresholds. This approach is based on a careful analysis of the weight distribution of RM codes. In particular, the flavor of the main result is the following: assume that the bit-MAP error probability decays as N−δ, for some δ > 0. Then, the block-MAP error probability also converges to 0. This technique applies to transmission over any binary memoryless symmetric channel. Thus, it can be thought of as a first step in extending the proof that RM codes are capacity-achieving to the general case.

We introduce a new approach to proving that a sequence of deterministic linear codes achieves capacity on an erasure channel under maximum a posteriori decoding. Rather than relying on the precise structure of the codes, our method exploits code symmetry. In particular, the technique applies to any sequence of linear codes where the block lengths are strictly increasing, the code rates converge, and the permutation group of each code is doubly transitive. In a nutshell, we show that symmetry alone implies near-optimal performance.

We establish the existence of wave-like solutions to spatially coupled graphical models which, in the large size limit, can be characterized by a 1-D real-valued state. This is extended to a proof of the threshold saturation phenomenon for all such models, which includes spatially coupled irregular low-density parity-check codes over the binary erasure channel (BEC), but also addresses hard-decision decoding for transmission over general channels, the code division multiple access problem, compressed sensing, and some statistical physics models. For traditional uncoupled iterative coding systems with two components and transmission over the BEC, the asymptotic convergence behavior is completely characterized by the EXIT curves of the components. In particular, the system converges to the desired fixed point, which is the one corresponding to perfect decoding, if and only if the two EXIT functions describing the components do not cross. For spatially coupled systems whose state is 1-D a closely related graphical criterion applies. Now the curves are allowed to cross, but not by too much. More precisely, we show that the threshold saturation phenomenon is related to the positivity of the (signed) area enclosed by two EXIT-like functions associated to the component systems, a very intuitive, and easy-to-use graphical characterization. In the spirit of EXIT functions and Gaussian approximations, we also show how to apply the technique to higher dimensional and even infinite-dimensional cases. In these scenarios, the method is no longer rigorous, but it typically gives accurate predictions. To demonstrate this application, we discuss transmission over general channels using both the belief-propagation as well as the min-sum decoder.

We consider the effect of LLR saturation on belief propagation decoding of low-density parity-check codes. Saturation is commonly done in practice and is known to have a significant effect on error floor performance. Our focus is on threshold analysis and the stability of density evolution. We analyze the decoder for certain low-density parity-check code ensembles and show that belief propagation decoding generally degrades gracefully with saturation. Stability of density evolution is, on the other hand, rather strongly affected by saturation and the asymptotic qualitative effect of saturation is similar to reduction of variable node degree by one.

We consider data transmission over a binary-input additive white Gaussian noise channel using low-density parity-check codes. One of the most popular techniques for decoding low-density parity-check codes is the linear programming decoder. In general, the linear programming decoder is suboptimal. In this paper we present a systematic approach to enhance the linear programming decoder. More precisely, in the cases where the linear program outputs a fractional solution, we give a simple algorithm to identify frustrated cycles which cause the output of the linear program to be fractional. Then adding these cycles, adaptively to the basic linear program, we show improved word error rate performance.

We investigate spatially coupled code ensembles. For transmission over the binary erasure channel, it was recently shown that spatial coupling increases the belief propagation threshold of the ensemble to essentially the maximum a priori threshold of the underlying component ensemble. This explains why convolutional LDPC ensembles, originally introduced by Felström and Zigangirov, perform so well over this channel. We show that the equivalent result holds true for transmission over general binary-input memoryless output-symmetric channels. More precisely, given a desired error probability and a gap to capacity, we can construct a spatially coupled ensemble that fulfills these constraints universally on this class of channels under belief propagation decoding. In fact, most codes in this ensemble have this property. The quantifier universal refers to the single ensemble/code that is good for all channels but we assume that the channel is known at the receiver. The key technical result is a proof that, under belief-propagation decoding, spatially coupled ensembles achieve essentially the area threshold of the underlying uncoupled ensemble. We conclude by discussing some interesting open problems.

We investigate spatially coupled code ensembles. For transmission over the binary erasure channel, it was recently shown that spatial coupling increases the belief propagation threshold of the ensemble to essentially the maximum a-priori threshold of the underlying component ensemble. This explains why convolutional LDPC ensembles, originally introduced by Felström and Zigangirov, perform so well over this channel. We show that the equivalent result holds true for transmission over general binary-input memoryless output-symmetric channels. More precisely, given a desired error probability and a gap to capacity, we can construct a spatially coupled ensemble which fulfills these constraints universally on this class of channels under belief propagation decoding. In fact, most codes in that ensemble have that property. The quantifier universal refers to the single ensemble/code which is good for all channels if we assume that the channel is known at the receiver. The key technical result is a proof that under belief propagation decoding spatially coupled ensembles achieve essentially the area threshold of the underlying uncoupled ensemble. We conclude by discussing some interesting open problems.

We present and study linear programming based detectors for two-dimensional intersymbol interference channels. Interesting instances of two-dimensional intersymbol interference channels are magnetic storage, optical storage and Wyner's cellular network model. We show that the optimal maximum a posteriori detection in such channels lends itself to a natural linear programming based sub-optimal detector. We call this the Pairwise linear program detector. Our experiments show that the Pairwise linear program detector performs poorly. We then propose two methods to strengthen our detector. These detectors are based on systematically enhancing the Pairwise linear program. The first one, the Block linear program detector adds higher order potential functions in an exhaustive manner, as constraints, to the Pairwise linear program detector. We show by experiments that the Block linear program detector has performance close to the optimal detector. We then develop another detector by adaptively adding frustrated cycles to the Pairwise linear program detector. Empirically, this detector also has performance close to the optimal one and turns out to be less complex then the Block linear program detector.

We consider spatially coupled code ensembles. A particular instance are convolutional LDPC ensembles. It was recently shown that, for transmission over the memoryless binary erasure channel, this coupling increases the belief propagation threshold of the ensemble to the maximum a-posteriori threshold of the underlying component ensemble. This paved the way for a new class of capacity achieving low-density parity check codes. It was also shown empirically that the same threshold saturation occurs when we consider transmission over general binary input memoryless channels. In this work, we report on empirical evidence which suggests that the same phenomenon also occurs when transmission takes place over a class of channels with memory. This is confirmed both by simulations as well as by computing EXIT curves.

We consider spatially coupled code ensembles over a multiple access channel. Convolutional LDPC ensembles are one instance of spatially coupled codes. It was shown recently that, for transmission over the binary erasure channel, this coupling of individual code ensembles has the effect of increasing the belief propagation threshold of the coupled ensembles to the maximum a-posteriori threshold of the underlying ensemble. In this sense, spatially coupled codes were shown to be capacity achieving. It was observed, empirically, that these codes are universal in the sense that they achieve performance close to the Shannon threshold for any general binary-input memoryless symmetric channels. In this work we provide further evidence of the threshold saturation phenomena when transmitting over a class of multiple access channel. We show, by density evolution analysis and EXIT curves, that the belief propagation threshold of the coupled ensembles is very close to the ultimate Shannon limit.

In the analysis of iterative coding systems it is often necessary to compare two densities and to measure how close they are. Sometimes it is convenient to compare their entropy or their Battacharyya parameter. But sometimes a more powerful measure is required. The Wasserstein metric is a convenient choice. We derive some basic properties of the Wasserstein metric which are important in the context of iterative coding. In particular, we will see how the Wasserstein metric compares to some other natural measures (such as the difference of entropies or Battacharyya parameters) and how the Wasserstein metric behaves under “natural” operations, like variable - or check-node convolution or under convex combinations. As an “application” we show how to prove the existence of the belief propagation Generalized EXIT curve for a non-trivial portion of the parameters.

The subject of this paper is transmission over a general class of binary-input memoryless symmetric channels using error correcting codes based on sparse graphs, namely, low-density generator-matrix and low-density parity-check codes. The optimal (or ideal) decoder based on the posterior measure over the code-bits and its relationship to the suboptimal belief propagation decoder are investigated. We consider the correlation (or covariance) between two code-bits, averaged over the noise realizations, as a function of the graph distance for the optimal decoder. Our main result is that this correlation decays exponentially fast for given low-density generator-matrix codes and a high enough noise parameter and also for given low-density parity-check codes and a low enough noise parameter. This has many consequences. Appropriate performance curves—called generalized extrinsic information transfer (GEXIT) functions—of the belief propagation and optimal decoders match in high/low noise regimes. This means that in high/low noise regimes the performance curves of the optimal decoder can be computed by density evolution. Another interpretation is that the replica predictions of spin-glass theory are exact. Our methods are rather general and use cluster expansions first developed in the context of mathematical statistical mechanics.

Convolutional low-density parity-check (LDPC) ensembles, introduced by Felström and Zigangirov, have excellent thresholds and these thresholds are rapidly increasing functions of the average degree. Several variations on the basic theme have been proposed to date, all of which share the good performance characteristics of convolutional LDPC ensembles. We describe the fundamental mechanism that explains why “convolutional-like” or “spatially coupled” codes perform so well. In essence, the spatial coupling of individual codes increases the belief-propagation (BP) threshold of the new ensemble to its maximum possible value, namely the maximum a posteriori (MAP) threshold of the underlying ensemble. For this reason, we call this phenomenon “threshold saturation.” This gives an entirely new way of approaching capacity. One significant advantage of this construction is that one can create capacity-approaching ensembles with an error correcting radius that is increasing in the blocklength. Although we prove the “threshold saturation” only for a specific ensemble and for the binary erasure channel (BEC), empirically the phenomenon occurs for a wide class of ensembles and channels. More generally, we conjecture that for a large range of graphical systems a similar saturation of the “dynamical” threshold occurs once individual components are coupled sufficiently strongly. This might give rise to improved algorithms and new techniques for analysis.

Convolutional LDPC ensembles, introduced by Felström and Zigangirov, have excellent thresholds and these thresholds are rapidly increasing as a function of the average degree. Several variations on the basic theme have been proposed to date, all of which share the good performance characteristics of convolutional LDPC ensembles. We describe the fundamental mechanism which explains why “convolutional-like” or “spatially coupled” codes perform so well. In essence, the spatial coupling of the individual code structure has the effect of increasing the belief-propagation (BP) threshold of the new ensemble to its maximum possible value, namely the maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) threshold of the underlying ensemble. For this reason we call this phenomenon “threshold saturation”. This gives an entirely new way of approaching capacity. One significant advantage of such a construction is that one can create capacity-approaching ensembles with an error correcting radius which is increasing in the blocklength. Our proof makes use of the area theorem of the BP-EXIT curve and the connection between the MAP and BP threshold recently pointed out by Méasson, Montanari, Richardson, and Urbanke. Although we prove the connection between the MAP and the BP threshold only for a very specific ensemble and only for the binary erasure channel, empirically the same statement holds for a wide class of ensembles and channels. More generally, we conjecture that for a large range of graphical systems a similar collapse of thresholds occurs once individual components are coupled sufficiently strongly. This might give rise to improved algorithms as well as to new techniques for analysis.

Consider transmission over a binary additive white gaussian noise channel using a fixed low-density parity check code. We consider the posterior measure over the code bits and the corresponding correlation between two codebits, averaged over the noise realizations. We show that for low enough noise variance this average correlation decays exponentially fast with the graph distance between the code bits. One consequence of this result is that for low enough noise variance the GEXIT functions (further averaged over a standard code ensemble) of the belief propagation and optimal decoders are the same.

Consider communication over a binary-input memoryless output-symmetric channel with low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and maximumaposteriori(MAP) decoding. The replica method of spin glass theory allows to conjecture an analytic formula for the average input-output conditional entropy per bit in the infinite block length limit. Montanari proved a lower bound for this entropy, in the case of LDPC ensembles with convex check degree polynomial, which matches the replica formula. Here we extend this lower bound to any irregular LDPC ensemble. The new feature of our work is an analysis of the second derivative of the conditional input-output entropy with respect to noise. A close relation arises between this second derivative and correlation or mutual information of codebits. This allows us to extend the realm of the ldquointerpolation method,rdquo in particular, we show how channel symmetry allows to control the fluctuations of the ldquooverlap parametersrdquo.

We consider communication over the binary erasure and the binary additive white gaussian noise channels using fixed linear block codes and also appropriate ensembles of such codes. We show concentration of the magnetization over the channel realizations and also over the code ensembles. The result has various implications. For the binary erasure channel, the result implies the concentration of the fraction of bits in error over the randomness in both noise and code realization, and that of the bit error probability under MAP decoding over the code ensemble. For both channels it implies concentration of the generalized EXIT function over code ensembles. Finally our results partly show that there is no replica symmetry breaking.

We consider communication over a binary input memoryless output symmetric channel with low density generator matrix codes and optimal maximum a posteriori decoding. It is known that the problem of computing the average conditional entropy, over such code ensembles in the asymptotic limit of large block length, is closely related to computing the free energy of a mean field spin glass in the thermodynamic limit. Tentative explicit formulas for these quantities have been derived thanks to the replica method (of spin glass theory) and are generally conjectured to be exact. In this contribution we show that the replica solution is indeed exact in the high noise regime, where it coincides with density evolution equations. Our method uses ideas coming from high temperature expansions in spin glass theory.

We consider communication over a binary erasure channel with low density parity check codes and optimal maximum a posteriori decoding. It is known that the problem of computing the average conditional entropy, over such code ensembles, in the asymptotic limit of large block length is closely related to computing the free energy of a mean field spin glass in the thermodynamic limit. Tentative, but explicit, formulas for these quantities have been derived thanks to the replica method (of spin glass theory) and are generally conjectured to be exact. In this contribution we show that the replica formulas are indeed exact in the case of Poissonian low density parity check ensembles. Our methods use ideas coming from the recent progress in the rigorous analysis of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model and their applications to the theory of error correcting codes.

Consider communication over a binary input memoryless output symmetric channel with LDPC codes and MAP decoding. Recently Montanari proved that the replica solution is a lower bound to the conditional entropy for a class of LDPC ensembles. Here we extend this lower bound to any irregular LDPC ensemble for the BEC, BIAWGNC, BSC. Our work combines an analysis of the second derivative of the conditional entropy with respect to the noise and the interpolation method