Information Theory · Cross-listed from cs.CR
A Public-Key-Dependent Adversarial-Deletion Ceiling for Fixed-Alphabet Multi-Bit Pseudorandom Codes
Frederick Dehmel and Shilun Li
A pseudorandom code (PRC) is a keyed error-correcting code whose codewords are computationally indistinguishable from uniform strings. We study public-key PRCs over fixed alphabets against
adversarial deletions, where the deletion channel may both depend on the public encoding key and the transmitted codeword. Let $\gamma_q^{\mathrm{LCS}}$ denote the asymptotic normalised longest-common-subsequence length of two independent uniform $q$-ary strings. We prove that for every fixed $q\ge2$ no multi-message public-key PRC with a single-output decoder is robust against all such $\delta$-deletion channels for any $\delta>1-\gamma_q^{\mathrm{LCS}}$. For $q=2$, the current rigorous bound $\gamma_2\ge0.792665992$ rules out every constant $\delta>0.207334008$. The proof uses pseudorandomness only to transfer an LCS event from uniform strings to independently sampled codewords and therefore also the resulting collision argument is information-theoretic and requires no secret key. We also extend the argument to list decoding: for every fixed constant $L$, provided the message space contains at least $L+1$ messages, no such PRC with output lists of size at most $L$ is robust for $\delta>1-\gamma_2^{(L+1)}$. Since $\gamma_2^{(m)}=1/2+\Theta(1/\sqrt m)$, these thresholds approach $1/2$. Our bounds are specific to public-key-dependent
adversarial channels and do not apply to oblivious edit channels.
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Information Theory · Cross-listed from math.PR
Shannon's problem on the monotonicity of entropy and a Conjecture of Tao
Ziran Liu
Let $X_1,X_2,\ldots$ be i.i.d. finitely supported random variables in a torsion-free abelian group, and write $S_k=X_1+\cdots+X_k$, and $H(S_k)$ is the Shannon
entropy $S_k$, for all $k \ge 1$. We prove that, for every fixed $n\geq1$, \[ H(S_{n+1})-H(S_n) \geq \frac12\log\frac{n+1}{n} -o_{H(X_1)\to\infty}(1), \] uniformly over the ambient group and the input law. This proves a
conjecture of Tao [29] in 2010.
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Information Theory · Cross-listed from math.RA
An Algebraic Framework for Data Systems: Classification and Optimization of Algebraic Structures for Data Organization and Coding
Kendy Inoa
Modern data systems are commonly studied through computational and information-theoretic methods, while their algebraic properties remain largely unexplored. This paper introduces a mathematical framework for modelling data systems using algebraic codes over finite groups, organized by an axiom signature: each algebraic axiom of the data domain is shown to be sufficient for a specific coding-theoretic capability, and each implication is given its precise reading (MDS parameters do not require a field; quotients require normality, not commutativity). Three types of results are presented. Proved: a Gilbert-Varshamov existence bound over arbitrary finite groups, commutative or not; explicit direct-sum codes over the elementary divisors of any finite abelian group; that transactions preserving a validity predicate form a submonoid of the full transformation monoid, which is not a group; that schema-preserving transformations form a finite group whose orbits are counted by Burnside's lemma; and that the constraint-preserving bijections of a data system form a finite group whose orbits partition the valid configurations. Demonstrated: an explicit code construction over $\mathbb{F}_5$, with known codes over $\mathbb{Z}_4$ and $(2^U,\triangle)$ cited to situate the framework. Proposed: an encoding efficiency measure Ef and an optimization functional $\Phi$ with tunable weights, both evaluated at declared coding instances. Weight-independent comparison holds under componentwise dominance; in general the weight simplex decomposes into polyhedral chambers on which the induced order is constant.
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Information Theory
An Approach to Asynchronous Unsourced Random Access
Alireza Karami and Dmitry Trukhachev
In this work we propose an approach to construct a fully asynchronous unsourced random access communications (URA) system. Besides the common URA features such as the absence of the user identification information in the packet and the decoding oriented to receiving the content of the messages, there is no limitation on the user transmission timing. The active users can transmit their packet any time on demand. The proposed system belongs to the class of preamble-payload URA formats. Contrary to the typical role of the preamble to serve as a temporary user identification, the preamble serves for the purpose of timing acquisition. The proposed system also employs a very small pool of preambles to resolve collisions of packets transmitted simultaneously.We provide a performance analysis and simulation results for the proposed system and demonstrate that for a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR)s the supported numbers of active users are close to the numbers of users supported by a slotted URA system counterpart.
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Information Theory · Cross-listed from cs.LG
Stochastic complexity of vectors containing cluster structure
Daniel Nicorici, Olli Yli-Harja and Jaakko Astola
This paper studies the problem of computing the
stochastic probability (shortest code length) of the encoded vectors containing cluster structure using Normalized Maximum Likelihood (NML) model. This is of great theoretical and practical importance in data clustering based on Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle, such as for estimating the best number of clusters and best cluster structure for the data. Straightforward computation of the shortest code length of the vector containing cluster structure based on the NML model requires
polynomial time with respect to the size of the vector and number of clusters. We show that this is a tractable problem by introducing a recursion formula for the efficient computation of normalizing constant from the NML model. The time complexity of the new formula is linear opposed to previous
polynomial time with respect to the size of the vector and number of clusters.
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Information Theory
Local Private Information Retrieval for Graph-Based Replicated Systems
Shreya Meel, Mohamed Nomeir and Sennur Ulukus
We rethink the definition of
privacy in multi-server, graph-replicated private information
retrieval (PIR) systems, by introducing a novel setting where the user's
privacy is governed by the servers' storage structure. In classical graph-replicated PIR, the user retrieves a single message stored at the servers, while hiding the message index from each server. In our proposed
privacy setting, the user is concerned with hiding the message index from a particular server, only if that server stores the message being retrieved, and
privacy is not imposed otherwise. We coin this relaxed
privacy requirement as local user
privacy and the resulting PIR problem as local PIR on the graph. Our focus is on two-replicated PIR systems, where every message is replicated twice and stored on two distinct servers. Specifically, we study local PIR systems where the storage is represented by simple graphs, i.e., every pair of vertices is associated with at most one edge, and by their multigraph extension, i.e., $r$ parallel edges replace every edge. For these settings, we establish bounds on the local PIR capacity, defined as the maximum number of message symbols retrieved, per downloaded symbol. The local
privacy requirement yields significant capacity gain over the classical PIR capacity under the same storage structure. For instance, in settings where the graph is a disjoint union of multiple identical sub-graphs, the gain in the local PIR capacity over classical PIR capacity is multiplicative in the number of sub-graphs. Further, for connected graphs, we derive capacity lower bounds for edge-transitive and bipartite graphs, which are greater than the best-known PIR capacity bounds. From these and by establishing matching upper bounds, we exactly characterize the capacity for
star graphs, cyclic graphs, and path graphs with odd number of vertices. We introduce two local PIR schemes for general graphs.
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Information Theory
Semantic Freshness Optimal Sampling and Transmission for Gossiping Receivers
Irtiza Hasan and Ahmed Arafa
We study the optimal joint sampling and transmission policy for a transmitter communicating with two gossiping receivers that share information with each other, with the objective of tracking a source under the Version Age of Information (VAoI) metric. The transmitter can observe source-version changes, but it has to pay a sampling cost to get the current source information content. Similarly, it can communicate with a receiver by paying a transmission cost. Gossiping enables local information exchange and is able to reduce costly direct transmissions. With imperfect communication links, we formulate an infinite-horizon average-cost Markov Decision Process (MDP) to jointly minimize receiver VAoI, sampling cost, and transmission cost. Using Relative Value Iteration (RVI), we evaluate the optimal policy and establish several properties of its structure. We prove that sampling has a threshold structure in the transmitter VAoI. Among direct transmissions, it is optimal to serve the older receiver. We further characterize the transmit or idle decision through the receiver VAoI difference. Our analysis shows that link reliability and receiver VAoI imbalance have a significant effect on the optimal policy structure. Numerical results verify the structural properties and demonstrate the performance gains of the optimal policy over multiple baselines.
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Information Theory
Minimax bounds for watermarked and masked recursive discrete distribution estimation
Millen Kanabar and Michael Gastpar
Watermarking has been proposed as a way to identify synthetic samples in estimation settings where no metadata is available to distinguish them from real samples, but its precise effects remain unexplored. In the absence of a distinguishing mechanism, it has been shown that adding synthetic samples significantly reduces the marginal efficacy of new real samples. In this work, we study the minimax loss of such recursive discrete distribution estimation in the presence of watermarks in contrast to the unassisted and oracle-assisted losses. When the fraction of real samples vanishes asymptotically, we provide a lower bound that shows that it is impossible to improve performance by adding watermarks unless the false negative rate of detection also vanishes. Additionally, we show that in most regimes, the worst-case losses of a sequence of simple deterministic
estimators match the corresponding lower bounds up to constants. Finally, we propose masking, a randomization procedure that narrows the gap in the remaining regimes to a Jensen gap. We
conjecture that a tighter lower bound argument can close this gap.
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Information Theory
Fast Fault-Tolerant Decoders for Hypergraph Product and Lifted-Product Codes
Asit Kumar Pradhan, Nithin Raveendran, David Declercq et al. (+1 more)
We design low-complexity, fault-tolerant decoders for
quantum low-density parity-check (QLDPC) codes with the goal of reducing decoding latency. We target two major bottlenecks of decoding under the
circuit-level noise model: (i) post-processing via order-statistics decoding (OSD), and (ii) the large number of auxiliary variable nodes commonly introduced to represent CNOT-induced correlations during syndrome extraction. Our key observation is that propagating CNOT faults (hook errors) create stabilizer-induced trapping sets (TSs) that are intrinsic to hypergraph-product (HGP) and lifted-product (LP) constructions. Therefore, instead of modeling each such fault with an explicit correlation node and relying on OSD to clean up the resulting failures, we design message-passing decoders that resolve the corresponding stabilizer-induced TSs directly. We obtain these decoders by deriving QLDPC decoders from decoders for the parent classical LDPC codes and using them collectively to correct broad families of stabilizer-induced TSs. For CNOT faults that manifest primarily as syndrome errors, we show that their effect is equivalent to a data error together with syndrome-bit measurement errors. Consequently, given repeated measurements and a decoding graph that already includes nodes representing syndrome-bit errors, no distinct variable node is needed for each CNOT fault. Using a phenomenological Tanner graph with nodes representing only data errors and syndrome-bit errors, simulations on the LP codes show a reduction in, or comparable, logical error rates relative to BP+OSD, at substantially lower decoding complexity.
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All authors Asit Kumar Pradhan, Nithin Raveendran, David Declercq, Bane Vasić
Information Theory
Asymptotic Bounds on Generalized Covering Radii of Binary Primitive BCH Codes
Maosheng Xiong, Chi Hoi Yip and Ferdinando Zullo
Fix integers $e\ge2$ and $r\ge1$. In this paper we study the $r$-th generalized covering radius $\rho_r\left(BCH(e,m)\right)$ of the binary primitive $e$-error-correcting BCH code $BCH(e,m)$. By using an algebraic-
geometric reformulation of the covering problem together with an explicit Lang-Weil estimate, we prove that \[\rho_r\bigl(\BCH(e,m)\bigr)\le(r+1)e-1\] for all sufficiently large $m$. For $e\ge7$, this improves a recent result of Belinsky–Zabokritskiy. Our proof gives a substantially simpler
geometric approach to this upper bound. In particular it implies that \[\rho_2\bigl(BCH(e,m)\bigr)=3e-1\] for all sufficiently large $m$. Previously it was only known that \[\rho_2\bigl(\BCH(e,m)\bigr) \in \left\{3e-1,3e\right\}\] for all sufficiently large $m$.
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Information Theory · Cross-listed from math.NT
Reduced polynomial lifts of APN permutations over Galois rings and effective non-APN bounds
Daniele Bartoli and Pantelimon Stanica
We study coefficientwise permutation lifts of reduced
polynomial representatives of almost perfect nonlinear (APN) permutations from finite fields to Galois rings. The standard permutation criterion shows that a permutation
polynomial over $\mathbb F_{2^m}$ admits such a lift if and only if its formal derivative is nowhere zero on the field. In that case, every coefficientwise lift permutes $\operatorname{GR}(2^k,m)$ for every $k>1$. It is natural to
conjecture that the reduced representative of an APN permutation admits no such lift. However, Zhang and Haobo supplied a counterexample to our earlier critical-point
conjecture, which also refutes this lifting claim. Their degree-$24$ reduced APN permutation over $\mathbb F_{32}$ has a nowhere-zero formal derivative. We record this example and give an exact linear-image and trace-dual criterion for the absence of rational critical points in quadratic functions. We also obtain explicit non-APN bounds from Janwa-Wilson-Rodier surfaces. For every odd degree $d\ge5$ outside the Gold and Kasami-Welch exponent families, results of Hernando-McGuire and Aubry-McGuire-Rodier yield an absolutely irreducible component defined over the ground field. Applying the Cafure-Matera point estimate gives an explicit threshold above which no
polynomial of degree $d$ over $\mathbb F_{2^m}$ is APN. This makes the known qualitative nonexistence result effective. An identity between difference tables extends the bound to
polynomials $ax+g(x^2)+c$, where $a\ne0$ and $g$ has an odd degree in the stated range. Finally, every cubic permutation
polynomial has a rational critical point and therefore admits no coefficientwise permutation lift.
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Information Theory
On Diagonalizable Delay-Doppler Channels and Their Diagonalizing Waveforms
Sirui Li, Cheng Du and Yu Zhu
In doubly selective channels, the joint delay and Doppler dispersion generally induces coupling among transmitted symbols, thereby increasing receiver equalization complexity. Nevertheless, by using appropriately designed waveforms, channels with certain delay-Doppler (DD) supports can be diagonalized for one-tap equalization. The whole picture of such DD supports and their corresponding waveforms is still unclear, except for several examples identified in literature. In this paper, under cyclic-prefix (CP)-based block transmission and assuming that the modulation waveforms form an orthonormal basis, we identify all such channel supports by an elementary expression, and derive the corresponding waveforms in closed form.
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Information Theory
Intelligent Reflecting Surface Deployment for Low-Altitude Coverage: Illumination Geometry, Directional Characteristics, and Optimization
Guoying Zhang, Qingqing Wu, Ailing Zheng et al. (+3 more)
Terrestrial base stations (BSs) are typically configured with fixed downtilt to serve ground users, resulting in weak illumination of low-altitude airspace even under line-of-sight (LoS) propagation. In this paper, we establish a channel model that incorporates BS and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) radiation patterns for three-dimensional (3D) low-altitude coverage while preserving the existing BS configuration. We formulate a budget-constrained IRS deployment problem that jointly determines candidate-site selection, IRS orientations, and phase shifts to maximize the worst-case signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over the 3D low-altitude airspace. The selected sites and optimized IRS parameters remain fixed after deployment, yielding a quasi-static IRS configuration. We characterize the illumination geometry between the fixed-downtilt BS and rooftop candidates by deriving the nonnegative installation-height range satisfying the BS main-lobe condition. The separation between the mapped main-lobe height boundaries grows linearly with horizontal BS-to-site distance and decreases inversely with the number of BS
antennas. We further derive an analytical lower bound on the regional worst-case normalized array gain achievable through IRS phase design over served directions with different direction spans. The resulting sufficient direction span decreases inversely with the square root of the number of IRS elements when the same worst-case normalized gain guarantee is maintained. We develop a mixed-integer alternating optimization (AO)
algorithm to solve the resulting problem. Simulation results validate the analytical characterizations and show that the proposed scheme achieves higher worst-case SNR than
benchmarks across different deployment budgets.
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All authors Guoying Zhang, Qingqing Wu, Ailing Zheng, Xingxiang Peng, Wen Chen, Wei Feng
Information Theory
Marker-Delimited Codes for Short-Blocklength, High-Rate Coding over Multi-Read Edit Channels
Sinan Ates Yercan, Marc Antonini and Serge Kas Hanna
The read process of DNA-based data storage systems generates multiple noisy copies of the stored DNA sequences, affected by edit errors consisting of substitutions, deletions, and insertions. Motivated by the challenge of ensuring reliable data
retrieval in the presence of edit errors, we present a concatenated coding scheme that accounts for practical design constraints in DNA storage. We introduce and apply the marker-delimited code (MDC) as the inner code, which enables fast and reliable computation of symbolwise a posteriori probabilities (APPs). We combine MDC with an outer LDPC code. The LDPC is decoded via belief propagation using the soft information generated by MDC. Our results show that, in comparison with prior work, this construction provides more efficient error correction over multi-read edit channels in the short-blocklength and high-rate regime.
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Information Theory · Cross-listed from math.CO
Edge codes constructed from unicyclic graphs
Sara Asensio, Giulia Gaggero, Naveena Ragunathan et al. (+2 more)
Jaramillo-Velez recently introduced edge codes, a new class of toric evaluation codes constructed from the edges of a (hyper)graph $\mathcal{H}$. In the case that $\mathcal{H}$ is a tree, Jaramillo-Velez computed both the minimum distance and the weight distribution of the associated code. In this paper, we study edge codes associated to unicyclic graphs. Our most striking result is that computing the parameters of these codes is subtle in the case that the induced cycle has an even length because these values will depend on certain conditions regarding the length of the cycle and the size of the base field.
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All authors Sara Asensio, Giulia Gaggero, Naveena Ragunathan, Abhilash Saha, Adam Van Tuyl
Information Theory
An Explicit Family of Log-Concave Counterexamples to the Gaussian Completely Monotone Conjecture
Jiayang Zou, Luyao Fan, Jiayang Gao et al. (+1 more)
We construct smooth, strictly log-concave counterexamples to the Gaussian completely monotone
conjecture in every dimension. In one dimension, they form an explicit family $f_m$ whose signed $m$th
entropy derivative at time zero is negative for every sufficiently large $m$; the inequality persists for all sufficiently small positive times. Tensorization with a broad Gaussian factor gives the higher-dimensional examples. The argument is analytic and self-contained. It reduces the sign to a two-frequency
entropy calculation on the circle and transfers the resulting asymptotic to the real line through an exact heat-flow formula for Gaussian-windowed
Fourier modes. The proof was developed by GPT-5.6 Sol Pro under the authors' guidance.
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All authors Jiayang Zou, Luyao Fan, Jiayang Gao, Jia Wang
Information Theory
Strengthening Recursive Constructions for Zero-Error Shannon Capacity
Ravi Tandon
The exact Shannon capacity is unknown for every odd cycle beyond the five-cycle $C_5$, making odd cycles a central open problem in zero-error information theory. Improving the known lower bounds requires constructing large independent sets in strong powers of these graphs. Recent AI-assisted work has produced a rapid sequence of improvements: building on the construction of Itty et al., Gao developed a recursive product construction for combining structured independent sets, and Buys, Polak, and Zuiddam (BPZ) subsequently strengthened this through a richer recursion framework. We continue this line of AI-assisted exploration and introduce a heterogeneous refinement of these constructions. The central observation is that the usefulness of an intermediate construction depends not only on the size of its current main independent set, but also on the auxiliary structure it carries into subsequent recursion. Consequently, different parts of that auxiliary structure need not use the same independent set, and different occurrences in a recursion need not use the same intermediate representation. We formalize this for Gao's binary product and derive explicit propagation rules showing how heterogeneous choices strengthen the resulting gadget while leaving its current code size unchanged, then extend the principle to the more general BPZ framework, tailoring constructions to the distinct roles they play within the recursion. Applying these refinements to the seven-cycle $C_7$, we obtain an independent set in $C_7^{\boxtimes 500}$ yielding $\Theta(C_7)\ge 3.25883262\ldots$, improving the best known lower bound. Beyond the numerical gain, the results illustrate a general principle for recursive zero-error constructions: intermediate structures with the same dimension and current code size can have different downstream value depending on where and how they are used in the recursion.
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Information Theory
Fluid Antenna Multiple Access for Noise Modulation
Hadi Zayyani and Felipe A. P. de Figueiredo
Noise modulation (NoiseMod) encodes information in the variance of a noise-like waveform. Its noncoherent structure enables low-complexity links, but co-channel users are challenging because interference affects the same variance statistic used for detection. We study fluid
antenna multiple access (FAMA) for two-level NoiseMod with independent random bits from each interferer, producing two possible nonzero interference variances. We adopt exact finite-sample maximum-likelihood energy detection from prior NoiseMod/TNM work. We derive the exact single-port moment-generating function and moments of the random-bit aggregate interference, including heterogeneous user powers, and prove that the port minimizing conditional BEP is $\arg\max_k H_k/(\sigma_w^2+J_k)$, where $H_k$ is desired-link power and $J_k$ is instantaneous bit-state-aware interference variance. For independent fading ports, the common interferer-bit vector couples per-port decision metrics; conditioning on the number of high-state interferers yields an exact binomial-mixture order-statistic representation and avoids the generally invalid rule $F_{Z_{\max}}=F_Z^{N_p}$. For spatially correlated operation, an integer-$\mu$ $\kappa$-$\mu$
benchmark uses full pairwise Jakes correlation in scattered fields, with channel-averaged BEP evaluated by conditional Monte Carlo. A standard-error-aware load study shows increased admissible co-channel users as spatial degrees of freedom grow. Finally, a finite-sample variance-domain sensing diagnostic quantifies the oracle gap under frozen channels and interferer states, providing a lower-bound warning on fast-FAMA sensing difficulty rather than a deployable acquisition protocol.
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