Performance enhancements for algebraic soft decision decoding of Reed-Solomon codes

In an attempt to determine the ultimate capabilities of the Sudan-Guruswami-Sudan-Kotter-Vardy algebraic soft decision decoding algorithm for Reed-Solomon codes, we present a new method, based on the Chernoff bound, for constructing multiplicity matrices. In many cases, this technique predicts that the potential performance of ASD decoding of RS codes is significantly better than previously thought.