English

Non interactive simulation of correlated distributions is decidable

Computational Complexity 2017-02-17 v2 Information Theory math.IT Probability

Abstract

A basic problem in information theory is the following: Let P=(X,Y)\mathbf{P} = (\mathbf{X}, \mathbf{Y}) be an arbitrary distribution where the marginals X\mathbf{X} and Y\mathbf{Y} are (potentially) correlated. Let Alice and Bob be two players where Alice gets samples {xi}i1\{x_i\}_{i \ge 1} and Bob gets samples {yi}i1\{y_i\}_{i \ge 1} and for all ii, (xi,yi)P(x_i, y_i) \sim \mathbf{P}. What joint distributions Q\mathbf{Q} can be simulated by Alice and Bob without any interaction? Classical works in information theory by G{\'a}cs-K{\"o}rner and Wyner answer this question when at least one of P\mathbf{P} or Q\mathbf{Q} is the distribution on {0,1}×{0,1}\{0,1\} \times \{0,1\} where each marginal is unbiased and identical. However, other than this special case, the answer to this question is understood in very few cases. Recently, Ghazi, Kamath and Sudan showed that this problem is decidable for Q\mathbf{Q} supported on {0,1}×{0,1}\{0,1\} \times \{0,1\}. We extend their result to Q\mathbf{Q} supported on any finite alphabet. We rely on recent results in Gaussian geometry (by the authors) as well as a new \emph{smoothing argument} inspired by the method of \emph{boosting} from learning theory and potential function arguments from complexity theory and additive combinatorics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1701.01485,
  title  = {Non interactive simulation of correlated distributions is decidable},
  author = {Anindya De and Elchanan Mossel and Joe Neeman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1701.01485},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

The reduction for non-interactive simulation for general source distribution to the Gaussian case was incorrect in the previous version. It has been rectified now

R2 v1 2026-06-22T17:42:27.157Z