Information Rates and post-FEC BER Prediction in Optical Fiber Communications

Information-theoretic metrics to analyze optical fiber communications systems with binary and nonbinary soft-decision FEC are reviewed. The numerical evaluation of these metrics in both simulations and experiments is also discussed. Ready-to-use closed-form approximations are presented.Comment: Invited paper, OFC 201

Ronald Reagan, Jesse Unruh and the California Gubernatorial Race, 1970

This essay examines the 1970 gubernatorial race in California between incumbent Ronald Reagan and powerful California legislator Jesse Unruh. Most of the scholarship on this particular subject tends to revolve around Reagan\u27s first campaign for governor, but neglects his re-election campaign. Although Unruh would lose the campaign, he narrowed Reagan\u27s win significantly. This study examines the candidates themselves, the issues facing California at the time, strategies used by each camp, and possible reasons why voters strayed from Reagan to the Unruh camp, and the final outcome of the race

Fixed points of endomorphisms of complex tori

We study the asymptotic behavior of the cardinality of the fixed point set of iterates of an endomorphism of a complex torus. We show that there are precisely three types of behavior of this function: it is either an exponentially growing function, a periodic function, or a product of both.Comment: Some typos corrected; the introduction was also revise

On the BICM Capacity

Optimal binary labelings, input distributions, and input alphabets are analyzed for the so-called bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) capacity, paying special attention to the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. For 8-ary pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and for 0.75 bit/symbol, the folded binary code results in a higher capacity than the binary reflected gray code (BRGC) and the natural binary code (NBC). The 1 dB gap between the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) capacity and the BICM capacity with the BRGC can be almost completely removed if the input symbol distribution is properly selected. First-order asymptotics of the BICM capacity for arbitrary input alphabets and distributions, dimensions, mean, variance, and binary labeling are developed. These asymptotics are used to define first-order optimal (FOO) constellations for BICM, i.e. constellations that make BICM achieve the Shannon limit -1.59 \tr{dB}. It is shown that the \Eb/N_0 required for reliable transmission at asymptotically low rates in BICM can be as high as infinity, that for uniform input distributions and 8-PAM there are only 72 classes of binary labelings with a different first-order asymptotic behavior, and that this number is reduced to only 26 for 8-ary phase shift keying (PSK). A general answer to the question of FOO constellations for BICM is also given: using the Hadamard transform, it is found that for uniform input distributions, a constellation for BICM is FOO if and only if it is a linear projection of a hypercube. A constellation based on PAM or quadrature amplitude modulation input alphabets is FOO if and only if they are labeled by the NBC; if the constellation is based on PSK input alphabets instead, it can never be FOO if the input alphabet has more than four points, regardless of the labeling.Comment: Submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Standard Model Extension with Flipped Generations

An extension of the Standard Model is presented that leads to the possible existence of new gauge bosons with masses in the range of a few TeV. Due to the fact that their couplings to Standard Model fermions are strongly suppressed, it is possible for them to be hidden from current searches. The model contains additional generations of fermions with quantum numbers resembling those of the Standard Model fermion generations but with a twist: their charge assignments are such that their electric charges and chiralities are flipped with respect to those of their corresponding Standard Model counterparts. This feature provides a way to obtain potential dark matter candidates and the interesting possibility for a Lepton number conserving dimension-five operator for Dirac neutrino masses. The model implications associated to electroweak precision parameters, flavor changing neutral currents, and diphoton rate contributions are briefly discussed. The general assumptions of this set up are also used to sketch a couple of variants of the model with peculiar features that could motivate further study.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Discussion on W' boson and RH neutrinos extended, references added, typos corrected, title changed. Matches published version in PL