Asymptotic Behavior of Error Exponents in the Wideband Regime

Abstract

In this paper, we complement Verdú's work on spectral efficiency in the wideband regime by investigating the fundamental tradeoff between rate and bandwidth when a constraint is imposed on the error exponent. Specifically, we consider both AWGN and Rayleigh-fading channels. For the AWGN channel model, the optimal values of $R_z(0)$ and $\dot{R_z}(0)$ are calculated, where $R_z(1/B)$ is the maximum rate at which information can be transmitted over a channel with bandwidth $B/2$ when the error-exponent is constrained to be greater than or equal to $z.$ Based on this calculation, we say that a sequence of input distributions is near optimal if both $R_z(0)$ and $\dot{R_z}(0)$ are achieved. We show that QPSK, a widely-used signaling scheme, is near-optimal within a large class of input distributions for the AWGN channel. Similar results are also established for a fading channel where full CSI is available at the receiver.