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Information content in Gaussian noise: optimal compression rates

August Romeo, Enrique Gaztanaga, Jose Barriga, Emilio Elizalde

physics.data-anarXiv:physics/9809004

Abstract

We approach the theoretical problem of compressing a signal dominated by Gaussian noise. We present expressions for the compression ratio which can be reached, under the light of Shannon's noiseless coding theorem, for a linearly quantized stochastic Gaussian signal (noise). The compression ratio decreases logarithmically with the amplitude of the frequency spectrum P(f) of the noise. Entropy values and compression rates are shown to depend on the shape of this power spectrum, given different normalizations. The cases of white noise (w.n.), fnp power-law noise ---including 1/f noise---, (w.n.+1/f) noise, and piecewise (w.n.+1/f | w.n.+1/f2) noise are discussed, while quantitative behaviours and useful approximations are provided.

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