Improved Upper and Lower Bounds on the Capacity of the Binary Deletion Channel

Abstract

The {\em binary deletion channel} with deletion probability $d$ ($\text{BDC}_d$) is a random channel that deletes each bit of the input message i.i.d with probability $d$. It has been studied extensively as a canonical example of a channel with synchronization errors. Perhaps the most important question regarding the BDC is determining its capacity. Mitzenmacher and Drinea (ITIT 2006) and Kirsch and Drinea (ITIT 2009) show a method by which distributions on run lengths can be converted to codes for the BDC, yielding a lower bound of $\mathcal{C}(\text{BDC}_d) > 0.1185 \cdot (1-d)$. Fertonani and Duman (ITIT 2010), Dalai (ISIT 2011) and Rahmati and Duman (ITIT 2014) use computer aided analyses based on the Blahut-Arimoto algorithm to prove an upper bound of $\mathcal{C}(\text{BDC}_d) < 0.4143\cdot(1-d)$ in the high deletion probability regime ($d > 0.65$). In this paper, we show that the Blahut-Arimoto algorithm can be implemented with a lower space complexity, allowing us to extend the upper bound analyses, and prove an upper bound of $\mathcal{C}(\text{BDC}_d) < 0.3745 \cdot(1-d)$ for all $d \geq 0.68$. Furthermore, we show that an extension of the Blahut-Arimoto algorithm can also be used to select better run length distributions for Mitzenmacher and Drinea's construction, yielding a lower bound of $\mathcal{C}(\text{BDC}_d) > 0.1221 \cdot (1 - d)$.