ℓp-norms of codewords from capacity- and dispersion-achieveing Gaussian codes

It is demonstrated that codewords of good codes for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel become more and more isotropically distributed (in the sense of evaluating quadratic forms) and resemble white Gaussian noise (in the sense of ℓp norms) as the code approaches closer to the fundamental limits. In particular, it is shown that the optimal Gaussian code must necessarily have peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of order log n.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Center for Science of Information Grant CCF-0939370

Peak-to-average power ratio of good codes for Gaussian channel

Consider a problem of forward error-correction for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. For finite blocklength codes the backoff from the channel capacity is inversely proportional to the square root of the blocklength. In this paper it is shown that codes achieving this tradeoff must necessarily have peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) proportional to logarithm of the blocklength. This is extended to codes approaching capacity slower, and to PAPR measured at the output of an OFDM modulator. As a by-product the convergence of (Smith's) amplitude-constrained AWGN capacity to Shannon's classical formula is characterized in the regime of large amplitudes. This converse-type result builds upon recent contributions in the study of empirical output distributions of good channel codes