Improved Bounds on the Parity-Check Density and Achievable Rates of Binary Linear Block Codes with Applications to LDPC Codes

In this paper, we present a novel way for solving the main problem of designing the capacity approaching irregular low-density parity-check (LDPC) code ensemble over binary erasure channel (BEC). The proposed method is much simpler, faster, accurate and practical than other methods. Our method does not use any relaxation or any approximate solution like previous works. Our method works and finds optimal answer for any given check node degree distribution. The proposed method ...

Consider data transmission over a binary-input additive white Gaussian noise channel using a binary low-density parity-check code. We ask the following question: Given a decoder that takes log-likelihood ratios as input, does it help to modify the log-likelihood ratios before decoding? If we use an optimal decoder then it is clear that modifying the log-likelihoods cannot possibly help the decoder's performance, and so the answer is "no." However, for a suboptimal decoder lik...

This paper considers the performance of $(j,k)$-regular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with message-passing (MP) decoding algorithms in the high-rate regime. In particular, we derive the high-rate scaling law for MP decoding of LDPC codes on the binary erasure channel (BEC) and the $q$-ary symmetric channel ($q$-SC). For the BEC, the density evolution (DE) threshold of iterative decoding scales like $\Theta(k^{-1})$ and the critical stopping ratio scales like $\Theta(k...

Iterative decoders used for decoding low-density parity-check (LDPC) and moderate-density parity-check (MDPC) codes are not characterized by a deterministic decoding radius and their error rate performance is usually assessed through intensive Monte Carlo simulations. However, several applications, like code-based cryptography, need guaranteed low values of the error rate, which are infeasible to assess through simulations, thus requiring the development of theoretical models...

We introduce fair-density parity-check (FDPC) codes targeting high-rate applications. In particular, we start with a base parity-check matrix $H_b$ of dimension $2 \sqrt{n} \times n$, where $n$ is the code block length, and the number of ones in each row and column of $H_b$ is equal to $\sqrt{n}$ and $2$, respectively. We propose a deterministic combinatorial method for picking the base matrix $H_b$, assuming $n=4t^2$ for some integer $t \geq 2$. We then extend this by obtain...

We study error bounds for linear programming decoding of regular LDPC codes. For memoryless binary-input output-symmetric channels, we prove bounds on the word error probability that are inverse doubly-exponential in the girth of the factor graph. For memoryless binary-input AWGN channel, we prove lower bounds on the threshold for regular LDPC codes whose factor graphs have logarithmic girth under LP-decoding. Specifically, we prove a lower bound of $\sigma=0.735$ (upper boun...

Density evolution for protograph Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes is considered, and it is shown that the message-error rate falls double-exponentially with iterations whenever the degree-2 subgraph of the protograph is cycle-free and noise level is below threshold. Conditions for stability of protograph density evolution are established and related to the structure of the protograph. Using large-girth graphs, sequences of protograph LDPC codes with block-error threshold...

In this paper, we formulate a new problem to cope with the transmission of extra bits over an existing coded transmission link (referred to as coded payload link) without any cost of extra transmission energy or extra bandwidth. This is possible since a gap to the channel capacity typically exists for a practical code. A new concept, termed as accessible capacity, is introduced to specify the maximum rate at which the superposition transmission of extra bits is reliable and h...

Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are specified by graphs, and are the error correction technique of choice in many communications and data storage contexts. Message passing decoders diffuse information carried by parity bits into the payload, and this paper measures the value of engineering parity bits to be more reliable than message bits. We consider the binary symmetric channel (BSC) and measure the impact of unequal data protection on the threshold of a regular LDPC ...

This paper outlines a three-step procedure for determining the low bit error rate performance curve of a wide class of LDPC codes of moderate length. The traditional method to estimate code performance in the higher SNR region is to use a sum of the contributions of the most dominant error events to the probability of error. These dominant error events will be both code and decoder dependent, consisting of low-weight codewords as well as non-codeword events if ML decoding is ...