Information Theory
Stabilizer entropy cones as self-dual slices of linear rank cones: a five-party gap and dependence on the local dimension
Xidan Song and Ruifeng Cao
Entanglement entropies of multipartite pure states satisfy linear inequalities; for stabilizer states, the backbone of
quantum error correction, the achievable
entropy vectors generate a convex cone. We show that, after a linear lift, the closure of this cone is exactly the self-dual slice of a classical object on one more element than there are parties: the closed cone generated by the rank functions of arrangements of subspaces over $\mathrm{GF}(d)$ for a
prime local dimension $d$, and of subgroups of abelian groups of exponent dividing $d$ in general. This correspondence brings two features of rank inequalities into play. First, the purifier acts as an extra variable: already for five parties the stabilizer cone is strictly smaller than the
quantum linear rank cone, with which earlier evidence suggested it might coincide; an explicit six-variable inequality witnesses the gap. Second, the characteristic of the field enters, so the cone depends on the local dimension. It does not for up to four parties. With enough parties, the cone of $\mathbb{Z}_d$ qudits is contained in that of $\mathbb{Z}_{d'}$ qudits if and only if $d$ divides $d'$, and already for six parties the logical zero state of Steane's code lies outside the stabilizer cone of every odd local dimension. For this last result we show that the seven-variable characteristic-dependent inequalities we checked all follow from Shannon inequalities on the self-dual slice, and instead transfer one of them through a family of subgroups derived from the Fano plane.
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Information Theory
Embedding Information in Policy Randomness: Distribution-Preserving Implicit Communication in MDPs
Gongpu Chen and Deniz Gündüz
This paper investigates a new role of randomness in
stochastic policies–as a medium for
embedding and communicating information. Specifically, we consider an
agent interacting with an environment according to a prescribed
stochastic policy. By carefully modulating the random action realizations of the policy, information can be embedded into the
agent's behavior without altering the prescribed action distribution. We cast this problem as a channel coding problem, in which the controlled system implicitly serves as a communication channel. We then propose a coding scheme, termed posterior-matching randomness modulation (PRAM), that selects actions according to the message to be transmitted. With the aid of common randomness independent of the control system, PRAM preserves the prescribed action distribution for every state and every message. We further prove that PRAM is asymptotically reliable: the message can be decoded with arbitrarily small error probability as the observed state trajectory becomes sufficiently long. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in applications including multi-bit policy watermarking and trajectory provenance.
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Information Theory
Exact Privacy–Distortion Design of Support-Constrained Randomized Response
Amirreza Zamani, Parastoo Sadeghi and Mikael Skoglund
Full-support local randomizers can incur unnecessary reporting distortion on ordered alphabets. We study randomized response whose output is restricted to a radius-$t$ neighborhood of the private input. Input-dependent supports create
privacy leakage at their boundaries, so ordinary likelihood-ratio calibration is no longer sufficient. Under approximate local
privacy restricted to input pairs at distance at most $H$, we derive the exact hockey-stick defect of the mechanism. We then solve the joint design of the truthful probability, off-truth probability, and support radius. The fixed-radius optimum is available in closed form, while the global optimum requires only a one-dimensional integer search. We characterize both the
privacy floor and its inverse, namely the smallest defect attainable under a reporting-distortion budget. We further prove that stringent approximate
privacy forces the support size to scale as $\Omega(H/\delta)$. Deterministic evaluations illustrate the resulting tradeoff.
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Information Theory · Cross-listed from quant-ph
Quantum simultaneous decoding via pretty-good measurements of tilted states
Mark M. Wilde
A multiple-access channel transmits messages from several senders to one receiver. For
quantum outputs, the receiver must distinguish states depending on all messages, while tests for different decoding errors may not commute. In this paper, we give a self-contained account of simultaneous decoding, in which one joint measurement recovers the messages at the established achievable rates using independent codebooks. The proof combines Sen's tilted-subspace method with Cheng's analysis of the pretty-good measurement, a standard measurement for distinguishing
quantum states. Auxiliary labels close to a common reference state separate the
geometric directions associated with different errors. A Gram-
matrix bound then allows separately chosen binary tests to certify the performance of one measurement. The labels are removed from the completed decoder, leading to a deterministic packing
theorem that applies to finite state ensembles, including unequal priors. We develop the two-sender case first, with worked examples and figures, before treating any fixed number of senders. Sharper finite-error guarantees for the same decoder are developed separately, with sharp bounds for two specified steps of the analysis rather than a claim of globally optimal decoding. Applications recover known achievable rates for unassisted and
entanglement-assisted classical communication, distributed classical compression with
quantum side information, and coherent-state communication through a beamsplitter or passive multiport device. The common proof makes the
geometric mechanism and its quantitative consequences available without repeating the construction for each application.
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Information Theory
Fine asymptotics for approximate simulation of symmetric channels
Valentinian Lungu, Aaron B. Wagner and Ioannis Kontoyiannis
We study the approximate channel simulation problem in the normal approximation regime. Our starting point is the fact established by Cao et al.~\cite{Cao_channel_simulation}, that the minimal codebook size $M_\epsilon^*(W)$ for a fixed error tolerance $\epsilon>0$ is closely related to the $\epsilon$-smooth channel max-information, $I_{\max}^\epsilon(W)$. Using this, we refine earlier large-blocklength approximations to $M_\epsilon^*(W^{\otimes n})$ for discrete memoryless channels. Specifically, we provide tight third-order expansions for Gallager-symmetric channels and demonstrate that the third-order term is channel-dependent. As in corresponding channel coding expansions, we identify a substantial rate gap between singular and nonsingular channels. Notably, the direction of this gap is reversed relative to channel coding: The third-order term is $-\frac{1}{2}\log n$ for singular channels but $O(\log\log n)$ for nonsingular channels.
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Information Theory
Higher-order nonhomomorphicity under affine restrictions
Serge Feukoua, Ana Sălăgean and Pantelimon Stănică
We study the behavior of the $k$-th-order nonhomomorphicity of Boolean functions under restriction to affine subspaces. For odd $k\ge3$ and $0\le t<n$, we introduce the $t$-restriction $k$-th-order nonhomomorphicity $P_{k,t}(f)$, defined as the minimum of $P_k(f_{\mid A})$ over affine spaces of codimension at most $t$. For a direct sum of $m$ monomials of degrees at least two, we determine $P_{k,t}$ exactly. When $t<m$, a minimum is obtained by setting one variable equal to zero in each of the $t$ monomials of lowest degree. When $m\le t<n$, the minimum is zero. The proof combines multiplicativity of even Walsh moments with a contraction argument for affine restrictions. We establish a general formula for the Walsh transform of a Boolean function restricted to an affine subspace of arbitrary codimension, yielding an exact spectral characterization of the $t$-restriction normalized nonlinearity $\rnnl_t(f)$. As odd $k$ tends to infinity, $(1-2P_{k,t}(f))^{1/(k+1)}$ converges to $1-2\rnnl_t(f)$. We further prove that every non-affine function has a hyperplane restriction with strictly smaller odd-order nonhomomorphicity. Finally, we determine $\rnnl_1(T_{d,n})$ exactly for all threshold functions with $n\ge3$. This proves the two threshold-function
conjectures left open in~\cite{SergeAnaPante2025}, including the previously unresolved odd-majority case, where a minimizing hyperplane is $x_1+x_2=0$.
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Information Theory
Low-Latency Belief-Propagation Decoding of Quantum LDPC Codes with Reinforcement-Learned Scheduling
Mohsen Moradi, Ghilas Aissou, Taejoon Kim et al. (+2 more)
Belief propagation (BP) is attractive for
quantum low-density parity-check (QLDPC) decoding because of its low complexity and low latency, but short cycles and degeneracy can limit its error-correction performance. Reinforcement-learned sequential scheduling (RL-S) substantially improves this performance by adapting the variable node (VN) update order, although Q-table storage and heap-based selection introduce additional overhead. We propose bucket RL-S (B-RL-S), which quantizes learned Q-values into integer priorities and schedules VN updates using dynamically maintained first-in, first-out buckets. Without retraining or changing the BP message updates, B-RL-S reduces policy storage and refreshes only priorities affected by local residual syndrome changes. A fixed number of priority levels enables constant-time VN selection and queue relocation. For the $[[288,12,18]]$ bivariate bicycle code over the depolarizing channel at $p=0.05$, B-RL-S with eight priority levels achieves approximately one fifth the block error rate (BLER) of flooding BP followed by order-10 ordered-statistics decoding. The respective caps are $1000$ sequential iterations for B-RL-S and $1000$ flooding iterations for the BP stage of the reference decoder. These results highlight strong error correction with inexpensive scheduling and no additional post-processing stage.
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All authors Mohsen Moradi, Ghilas Aissou, Taejoon Kim, Remi A. Chou, David G. M. Mitchell
Information Theory
Residual-Information Generalization Bounds Under Selective Privacy: Extended Version
Amirreza Zamani, Parastoo Sadeghi and Mikael Skoglund
Information-theoretic generalization bounds usually control dependence on the task sample, whereas selective
privacy may constrain only a different, private coordinate. We study i.i.d. pairs $(X,Y)$, where a learner observes $(X^n,Y^n)$, leaks at most $\epsilon_n$ nats about $X^n$, and incurs loss on $Y$. A chain-rule transfer converts this mismatched constraint into the closed-form universal certificate $I(W;Y^n)\leq\min\{nH(Y),nH(Y\mid X)+\epsilon_n\}$. Combining the certificate with mutual-information generalization yields a bound governed by residual task uncertainty and normalized
privacy leakage. We derive complementary task-compression and individual-sample refinements, identify a sharp obstruction showing why selective
privacy alone need not give a vanishing certificate, and invert the bound to obtain the exact leakage allowance for a prescribed generalization tolerance. We prove exact information-level achievability for deterministic-task and independent-residual source families and show that the resulting $\sqrt{\epsilon_n/n}$ generalization rate is tight up to a universal constant. We also give a fixed-horizon adaptive application in which conditional leakage costs add.
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Information Theory
Superpolynomial Lists for Reed-Solomon Codes over Binary Extension Fields
Minshen Zhu
Recent work shows that ordinary Reed–Solomon codes over
prime fields admit
polynomial-size lists up to list-decoding capacity on every evaluation set. We show a contrasting phenomenon over binary extension fields. For every fixed rate $0<R<1$, there exists $\varepsilon_R>0$ such that, for all sufficiently large $h$, the full-field Reed–Solomon code over $\mathbb{F}_{2^h}$ has a received word with $n^{\Omega_R(\log n)}$ codewords within relative distance $1-R-\varepsilon_R$. To our knowledge, these are the first superpolynomial ordinary Reed–Solomon list-size lower bounds at fixed positive rate and a fixed positive agreement gap above the rate. Thus capacity-approaching
polynomial list size for Reed–Solomon codes is not uniform over the underlying field, and the obstruction occurs at every fixed rate. As a puncturing consequence, the same holds for primitive Reed–Solomon codes; the obstruction is also robust under controlled dense puncturing. The proof begins with an exact correspondence that turns certain binary Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquenghem weight-enumerator coefficients into sizes of single Reed–Solomon lists. A classical binary weight family gives the initial quarter-rate construction, while a quadratic-form enumeration supplies its superpolynomial multiplicity. A common-kernel quotient/descent argument and common-root padding then extend the construction to all rates. We also determine the optimized agreement envelope achieved by the construction.
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Information Theory
On the Average List Size of VT Codes under Two Insertions or Two Deletions
Anisha Banerjee, Roni Con, Antonia Wachter-Zeh et al. (+1 more)
Levenshtein's classical
theorem shows that any code that can uniquely decode from \(t\) deletions can also uniquely decode from \(t\) insertions. This
symmetry, however, does not generally hold in the list-decoding regime. Several prior results on the capacity and radii of list-decoding from insertions and deletions suggest that insertions are easier to handle than deletions. In an effort to better understand this asymmetry between insertions and deletions under list-decoding, we study an analogous version of McEliece's average list size problem. More precisely, given a binary code \(\mathcal{C}\) of length \(n\) that uniquely corrects \(t'\) insertions (or deletions), we are interested in the average number of codewords returned by a \(t\)-insertion (or deletion) list decoder, where \(t' < t\). Focusing on the case of \(t'=1\) and \(t=2\), we find that under two insertions, this quantity is at most \((n+12)/4\) for any VT code of length \(n\), whereas under two deletions it is at least \(n/2 - 10\) when averaged over all length-\(n\) VT codes. The nearly factor-of-two gap between these upper and lower bounds serves to confirm the relative ease of list-decoding of insertions compared to deletions from an average-case perspective.
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All authors Anisha Banerjee, Roni Con, Antonia Wachter-Zeh, Eitan Yaakobi
Information Theory · Cross-listed from math.PR
Sharp Rogers–Shephard Inequalities for Rényi Entropy
Bang-Xian Han, Guoqing Zhan, Chiyu Zhou et al. (+1 more)
We establish sharp weighted Rogers–Shephard inequalities for Rényi differential
entropy. For independent copies $X,X'$ of a log-concave random vector in $\R^n$, we prove $h_p(aX-bX')\le h_p(X)+n\log(a+b)$ for all $a,b>0$ and $1\le p\le\infty$, where orders $1$ and $\infty$ correspond to Shannon
entropy and min-
entropy, respectively. The Shannon case settles the entropic Rogers–Shephard
conjecture of Madiman and Kontoyiannis and its higher-dimensional formulation. For $1\le p<\infty$, equality holds precisely for invertible affine images of random vectors with independent exponential coordinates. At $p=\infty$, the larger equality class is characterized by possibly extended-valued convex potentials that are positively homogeneous of degree one. For every $0<p<1$, uniform laws on sufficiently high-dimensional simplices violate the unweighted bound. Thus $p=1$ is the critical order for this bound to hold in every dimension. The proof combines weighted convex intersections with an exponential lift to a log-affine probability density. At the Shannon endpoint, this lift yields an exact deficit decomposition with a conditional mutual information term for an additive channel with asymmetric Laplace noise.
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All authors Bang-Xian Han, Guoqing Zhan, Chiyu Zhou, Zhuo-Nan Zhu
Information Theory
Correcting Burst Errors with Applications to DNA-Based Data Storage
Yuan-Pon Chen and Olgica Milenkovic
We introduce the problem of permutation burst error-correction, motivated by applications in molecular data storage with nanopore sequencing read platforms. A permutation burst of length $k$ is an error that affects a substring of length $k$ of a string of length $n$ by permuting its entries. Permutation burst errors can be corrected using classical burst error-correcting codes, such as Fire and Reed-Solomon codes. Here, we study how to reduce the redundancy of these classical codes by taking into account that the burst error preserves the weight of the substring. In addition, we further restrict our model to handle cyclic permutation bursts only, which are of independent practical and mathematical interest. Our main results include proving/establishing the following: a) for $k=o(\sqrt{n}),$ the redundancy of any permutation burst error correcting code is at least $\log n-k+\log \binom{2k-2}{k-2}+o(1).$ This result follows from McDiarmid's concentration bound; b) for $k \geq 9$ and $k=o\left(\sqrt{\frac{n}{\log n}}\right)$, the redundancy of any cyclic permutation burst error correcting code is at least $\log n +\log (k(k-1)-56)-\log\,80+o(1).$ c) the asymptotic redundancy upper bounds for the two types of substring errors that are twice the lower bound; d) constructions for both permutation burst and cyclic permutation burst errors that involve Varshamov-Tenegoltz type constraints or represent generalizations and extensions of Fire and other codes. In particular, we exhibit polynomially encodable and decodable codes that can correct cyclic bursts of length $\leq k$ using $\log n + k + 49\log k + O(\log \log k)$ redundant bits.
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Information Theory
Exact Sampling Under Campbell Cost via Rényi Channel Simulation Divergence
Yijun Fan and Aaron B. Wagner
We study the communication cost of exact sampling under Campbell's exponential coding criterion. Given a target distribution $P$ and a proposal distribution $Q$, the sender and receiver share i.i.d. $Q$-distributed samples, and the sender communicates an index so that the selected sample has distribution exactly $P$. We introduce a new information measure Rényi channel simulation divergence $R_\alpha(P\Vert Q)$, a Rényi generalization of the channel simulation divergence. We then show that it lower bounds the Campbell cost of every exact sampler and is achievable, via a new layered sampling scheme, within an additive constant depending only on the Campbell parameter. This yields a tighter one-shot characterization than previous bounds based on Rényi divergences of different orders. For i.i.d. product distributions, under suitable non-degeneracy and moment conditions, we further show that the gap beyond the leading Rényi-divergence term is $\frac{1}{2}\log n+O(1)$.
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Information Theory · Cross-listed from eess.SP
Bistatic Delay-Doppler Sensing for 3D Target Localization in Distributed Wi-Fi Systems
Kyungmin Hong, Moein Ahmadi, Thomas Stifter et al. (+2 more)
This paper investigates how bistatic delay information improves the observability and localization performance of 3D moving targets in distributed Wi-Fi sensing. Motivated by emerging IEEE 802.11bf WLAN sensing, we consider one transmitter, multiple distributed receivers, and a single target with unknown position and velocity. We compare Doppler-only sensing with delay-Doppler sensing, in which delay-capable receivers provide additional bistatic path-length information for target localization. We derive the Fisher information
matrix (FIM) and the position equivalent FIM (EFIM) for both sensing formulations. The resulting observability analysis shows that Doppler-only localization generically requires six receivers, whereas delay-Doppler localization can become locally identifiable with three receivers under non-degenerate geometry. We further study mixed receiver architectures in which only a subset of receivers provides delay estimates. Simulations with Wi-Fi-like bandwidths confirm the transition and quantify the roles of bandwidth, Doppler noise, receiver geometry, and delay-capable receiver availability.
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All authors Kyungmin Hong, Moein Ahmadi, Thomas Stifter, Mounim A. El Yacoubi, Bhavani Shankar Mysore R
Information Theory
Binary Codes Correcting Multiple Edits via Polynomial Hashing and Entropy Recycling
Quan D. Bui, Shuche Wang and Van Khu Vu
Codes in the Levenshtein metric that can correct multiple edits (including deletions, insertions, and substitutions) have attracted a lot of
attention recently owing to their application in DNA-based storage and racetrack
memories. In this work, we present new techniques for designing explicit binary codes of length $n$ that correct $t$ edits with at most $(2t+1)\log n+O_t(\log\log n)$ bits of redundancy. We first propose to use a
polynomial hash to construct a systematic code that corrects $t$ edits with $(4t+2)\log n+O_t(\log\log n)$ bits of redundancy. Then we observe that there are many
polynomial hashes like this, some are good, some are bad. So, we propose the second technique, called
entropy recycling, to use the indices of good hashes to carry information. As a consequence, we obtain a partial-systematic code of length $n$ that corrects $t$ edits with at most $(2t+1)\log n+O_t(\log\log n)$ bits of redundancy. Finally, we provide deterministic
polynomial-time encoding and decoding
algorithms for our code.
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Information Theory
Rate-Distortion Theory of Gaussian Mixtures via Posterior Label Sampling
Weichen Wang and Deniz Gündüz
We study the mean-squared error (MSE) rate-distortion function (RDF) of finite Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) in $\mathbb{R}^d$, for which neither the RDF nor an optimal test channel is known in closed form. It can be sandwiched between the genie-aided conditional RDF $R_{\mathbf{X} | T}(D)$, which can be characterized in closed-form for a GMM, and $R_{\mathbf{X} | T}(D)+I(\mathbf{X};T)$, where $T$ denotes the latent component label. We show that the upper bound can be achieved operationally by the proposed Gibbs-relabelling method (GRM), which conveys a label from the posterior $P_{T|\mathbf{X}}$ through channel simulation at rate $I(\mathbf{X};T)$, followed by vector quantization of the resulting exactly Gaussian conditional sources by reverse water-filling. Using the Shannon lower bound (SLB), we prove that GRM attains the SLB, and hence the RDF, of a general finite mixture if and only if every component attains its own SLB. For a GMM this holds throughout the fully active interval $D/d<\min_{k,m}\lambda_{k,m}$, where $\lambda_{k,m}$ are the
eigenvalues of the component covariances, and for scalar GMMs the condition is also necessary. Since GRM cannot operate below the label cost $I(\mathbf{X};T)$, we propose a complementary
stochastic scalar quantization (SSQ) scheme for low rates, which simulates an $M$-ary reconstruction index. We show that at low rates SSQ with $M\geq 2$ matches the Shannon RDF to first order: $R(D_{\max}-\delta)=\delta/(2\tau^2)+o(\delta)$, where $\tau^2$ is a directional sub-Gaussian proxy of the mixture, and quantify the price of a finite codebook through a strict rate gap at high rates and a distortion floor whose joint scaling in $M$ and number of mixture components is characterized. Numerical results illustrate both regimes and the finite-blocklength cost of channel simulation.
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Information Theory · Cross-listed from math.CO
Hull Variation in Symplectic Linear Codes
Kanat Abdukhalikov, Somi Gupta and Duy Ho
We study the variation of hull dimensions of symplectic linear codes under equivalence transformations preserving the symplectic distance. For a symplectic linear code $C$, we introduce an even-valued invariant $\Delta(C)$, which depends only on the equivalence class of $C$. This invariant can be expressed as the generic rank of an associated space of alternating
matrices and, equivalently, as twice a corresponding matroid matching number. If $C$ has dimension $k$, we prove that the minimum symplectic hull dimension among all codes equivalent to $C$ is $k-\Delta(C)$. Consequently, $C$ is equivalent to a symplectic LCD code if and only if $\Delta(C)=k$. We further show that every symplectic MDS code of even dimension is monomially equivalent to a symplectic LCD code. For a symplectic self-orthogonal code $C$, we determine all attainable hull dimensions: for every integer $r$ with $0\le r\le \Delta(C)/2$, there exists a monomially equivalent code whose symplectic hull has dimension $k-2r$. We also refine a standard form for the generator
matrix of a symplectic self-orthogonal code and derive the corresponding parity-check
matrix and the Gram
matrix of the dual code. In the self-dual case, we characterize $\Delta(C)$ through minors of an associated symmetric
matrix. Furthermore, we relate hull variation to graph matchings, establish a bound for $\Delta(C)$, and give graph constructions producing symplectic self-dual MDS, optimal, and best-known codes.
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Information Theory
SiteEvo: An LLM Agent for Autonomous Discovery of Site-Adaptive Massive MIMO Detectors
Jiajia Guo, Chao-Kai Wen, Shi Jin et al. (+1 more)
Designing a massive multiple-input multiple-output (
MIMO) detector that is tailored to each specific deployment site can improve detection performance, yet most existing detectors, including deep-unfolding methods, adapt mainly within human-prescribed algorithmic structures. This letter proposes SiteEvo, a site-adaptive agentic discovery framework that extends adaptation from parameter tuning to detector-
algorithm discovery. Rather than selecting or recombining predefined architectures, the large
language model (LLM)
agent synthesizes complete executable detector programs under a common design contract by combining its pretrained communication knowledge, site-specific wireless evidence, and experience accumulated during the search. Each proposal defines its own processing structure and trainable parameterization, and the parameters are optimized by a communication-system backend. The resulting high-performance detector is further structurally refined to reduce block-level computational cost under a bit error rate (BER)-preservation constraint and is finally frozen for deployment without online LLM inference. Simulations across three sites demonstrate BER reductions by factors of 2.6 to 6.0 over the best-performing competing detector at each site at 6 dB, while structural refinement reduces block-level computational cost by 16.7-34.1% under a validation-BER constraint.
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All authors Jiajia Guo, Chao-Kai Wen, Shi Jin, Jun Zhang