On Minimal Tree Realizations of Linear Codes

A tree decomposition of the coordinates of a code is a mapping from the coordinate set to the set of vertices of a tree. A tree decomposition can be extended to a tree realization, i.e., a cycle-free realization of the code on the underlying tree, by specifying a state space at each edge of the tree, and a local constraint code at each vertex of the tree. The constraint complexity of a tree realization is the maximum dimension of any of its local constraint codes. A measure of the complexity of maximum-likelihood decoding for a code is its treewidth, which is the least constraint complexity of any of its tree realizations. It is known that among all tree realizations of a linear code that extends a given tree decomposition, there exists a unique minimal realization that minimizes the state space dimension at each vertex of the underlying tree. In this paper, we give two new constructions of these minimal realizations. As a by-product of the first construction, a generalization of the ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Navin Kashyap
• Keywords: Code, CORR 2007, Education, Tree, Tree Realization