dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaOne-Cold Poisson Channel: A Simple Continuous-Time Channel with Zero Dispersion
| Authors | Cheuk Ting Li |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | 2601.09894vv1 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.09894 |
| License | http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
Abstract
We introduce the one-cold Poisson channel (OCPC), where the transmitter chooses one of several frequency bands to attenuate at a time. In particular, the perfect OCPC, where the number of bands is unlimited, is an extremely simple continuous-time memoryless channel. It has a capacity 1, zero channel dispersion, and an information spectrum being the degenerate distribution at 1. It is the only known nontrivial (discrete or continuous-time) memoryless channel with a closed-form formula for its optimal non-asymptotic error probability, making it the simplest channel in this sense. A potential application is optical communication with a tunable band rejection filter. Due to its simplicity, we may use it as a basic currency of information that is infinitely divisible, as an alternative to bits which are not infinitely divisible. OCPC with perfect feedback gives a generalization of prefix codes. We also study non-asymptotic coding and channel simulation results for the general OCPC.
{
"annotation_id": "e4e096e9-3e3d-4ec9-8d25-c93126dfc738",
"date_created": "2026-02-17T05:53:24.062000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-02-17T05:53:24.062000Z",
"file_hash": "867a32262e46511c3af7d1e7038306f132c5d23eaa0a9b9ff4402b979cd357c2",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "We introduce the one-cold Poisson channel (OCPC), where the transmitter chooses one of several frequency bands to attenuate at a time. In particular, the perfect OCPC, where the number of bands is unlimited, is an extremely simple continuous-time memoryless channel. It has a capacity 1, zero channel dispersion, and an information spectrum being the degenerate distribution at 1. It is the only known nontrivial (discrete or continuous-time) memoryless channel with a closed-form formula for its optimal non-asymptotic error probability, making it the simplest channel in this sense. A potential application is optical communication with a tunable band rejection filter. Due to its simplicity, we may use it as a basic currency of information that is infinitely divisible, as an alternative to bits which are not infinitely divisible. OCPC with perfect feedback gives a generalization of prefix codes. We also study non-asymptotic coding and channel simulation results for the general OCPC.",
"arxiv_id": "2601.09894",
"authors": [
"Cheuk Ting Li"
],
"categories": [
"cs.IT",
"eess.SP",
"math.IT"
],
"license": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
"title": "One-Cold Poisson Channel: A Simple Continuous-Time Channel with Zero Dispersion",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.09894",
"version": "v1"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "771a8c06-8057-4b80-a65d-b0f66eb31b89",
"id": "arXiv Dataset",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-01-17",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}