A short proof of the G\'acs--K\"orner theorem

Abstract

We present a short proof of a celebrated result of G\'acs and K\"orner giving sufficient and necessary condition on the joint distribution of two discrete random variables $X$ and $Y$ for the case when their mutual information matches the extractable (in the limit) common information. Our proof is based on the observation that the mere existence of certain random variables jointly distributed with $X$ and $Y$ can impose restriction on all random variables jointly distributed with $X$ and $Y$.