Some Properties Of Memoryless Multiterminal Interference Channels

Abstract

This paper examines some properties of memoryless multiterminal interference channels. A general formula for the capacity of such channels is presented. However this formula does not easily lend itself to computation. Motivated by the fact that for a single user memoryless channel (l/N)Sup[ I(X;Y) ] is independent of N (where X and Y are N-vectors and the suprema is taken over all probability distributions on X), we are investigating the possibility that the general capacity formula has an analogous simplification. A specific example of a Gaussian interference channel with two independent users is considered. It is shown that certain probability distributions for N=2 achieve points on the boundary of the capacity region. We hope that some form of this result will generalize to other multiterminal communication channels, and possibly give some insight into the nature of the channel capacity in terms of a single-letter description. Presently, the capacity region of such channels is, in general, unknown.