Secrecy Capacity of the Gaussian Wire-Tap Channel with Finite Complex Constellation Input

Abstract

The secrecy capacity of a discrete memoryless Gaussian Wire-Tap Channel when the input is from a finite complex constellation is studied. It is shown that the secrecy capacity curves of a finite constellation plotted against the SNR, for a fixed noise variance of the eavesdropper's channel has a global maximum at an internal point. This is in contrast to what is known in the case of Gaussian codebook input where the secrecy capacity curve is a bounded, monotonically increasing function of SNR. Secrecy capacity curves for some well known constellations like BPSK, 4-QAM, 16-QAM and 8-PSK are plotted and the SNR at which the maximum occurs is found through simulation. It is conjectured that the secrecy capacity curves for finite constellations have a single maximum.