Taylor series expansions for the entropy rate of Hidden Markov Processes

Finding the entropy rate of Hidden Markov Processes is an active research topic, of both theoretical and practical importance. A recently used approach is studying the asymptotic behavior of the entropy rate in various regimes. In this paper we generalize and prove a previous conjecture relating the entropy rate to entropies of finite systems. Building on our new theorems, we establish series expansions for the entropy rate in two different regimes. We also study the radius of convergence of the two series expansions

Asymptotics of entropy rate in special families of hidden Markov chains

We derive an asymptotic formula for entropy rate of a hidden Markov chain under certain parameterizations. We also discuss applications of the asymptotic formula to the asymptotic behaviors of entropy rate of hidden Markov chains as outputs of certain channels, such as binary symmetric channel, binary erasure channel, and some special Gilbert-Elliot channel. © 2006 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Concavity of Mutual Information Rate for Input-Restricted Finite-State Memoryless Channels at High SNR

We consider a finite-state memoryless channel with i.i.d. channel state and the input Markov process supported on a mixing finite-type constraint. We discuss the asymptotic behavior of entropy rate of the output hidden Markov chain and deduce that the mutual information rate of such a channel is concave with respect to the parameters of the input Markov processes at high signal-to-noise ratio. In principle, the concavity result enables good numerical approximation of the maximum mutual information rate and capacity of such a channel.Comment: 26 page

Analyticity of Entropy Rate of Hidden Markov Chains With Continuous Alphabet

We first prove that under certain mild assumptions, the entropy rate of a hidden Markov chain, observed when passing a finite-state stationary Markov chain through a discrete-time continuous-output channel, is analytic with respect to the input Markov chain parameters. We then further prove, under strengthened assumptions on the chan- nel, that the entropy rate is jointly analytic as a function of both the input Markov chain parameters and the channel parameters. In particular, the main theorems estab- lish the analyticity of the entropy rate for two representative channels: Cauchy and Gaussian.published_or_final_versio

Analyticity of Entropy Rates of Continuous-State Hidden Markov Models

The analyticity of the entropy and relative entropy rates of continuous-state hidden Markov models is studied here. Using the analytic continuation principle and the stability properties of the optimal filter, the analyticity of these rates is shown for analytically parameterized models. The obtained results hold under relatively mild conditions and cover several classes of hidden Markov models met in practice. These results are relevant for several (theoretically and practically) important problems arising in statistical inference, system identification and information theory

Derivatives of Entropy Rate in Special Families of Hidden Markov Chains

Consider a hidden Markov chain obtained as the observation process of an ordinary Markov chain corrupted by noise. Zuk, et. al. [13], [14] showed how, in principle, one can explicitly compute the derivatives of the entropy rate of at extreme values of the noise. Namely, they showed that the derivatives of standard upper approximations to the entropy rate actually stabilize at an explicit finite time. We generalize this result to a natural class of hidden Markov chains called ``Black Holes.'' We also discuss in depth special cases of binary Markov chains observed in binary symmetric noise, and give an abstract formula for the first derivative in terms of a measure on the simplex due to Blackwell.Comment: The relaxed condtions for entropy rate and examples are taken out (to be part of another paper). The section about general principle and an example to determine the domain of analyticity is taken out (to be part of another paper). A section about binary Markov chains corrupted by binary symmetric noise is adde

Asymptotics of Entropy Rate in Special Families of Hidden Markov Chains

We derive an asymptotic formula for entropy rate of a hidden Markov chain around a "weak Black Hole". We also discuss applications of the asymptotic formula to the asymptotic behaviors of certain channels.Comment: 16 page

A Randomized Algorithm for the Capacity of Finite-State Channels

Inspired by ideas from the field of stochastic approximation, we propose a ran- domized algorithm to compute the capacity of a finite-state channel with a Markovian input. When the mutual information rate of the channel is concave with respect to the chosen parameterization, the proposed algorithm proves to be convergent to the ca- pacity of the channel almost surely with the derived convergence rate. We also discuss the convergence behavior of the algorithm without the concavity assumption.published_or_final_versio