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Trace reconstruction with varying deletion probabilities

Probability 2017-08-08 v1 Information Theory math.IT Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

In the trace reconstruction problem an unknown string x=(x0,,xn1){0,1,...,m1}n{\bf x}=(x_0,\dots,x_{n-1})\in\{0,1,...,m-1\}^n is observed through the deletion channel, which deletes each xkx_k with a certain probability, yielding a contracted string X~\widetilde{\bf X}. Earlier works have proved that if each xkx_k is deleted with the same probability q[0,1)q\in[0,1), then exp(O(n1/3))\exp(O(n^{1/3})) independent copies of the contracted string X~\widetilde{\bf X} suffice to reconstruct x\bf x with high probability. We extend this upper bound to the setting where the deletion probabilities vary, assuming certain regularity conditions. First we consider the case where xkx_k is deleted with some known probability qkq_k. Then we consider the case where each letter ζ{0,1,...,m1}\zeta\in \{0,1,...,m-1\} is associated with some possibly unknown deletion probability qζq_\zeta.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.02216,
  title  = {Trace reconstruction with varying deletion probabilities},
  author = {Lisa Hartung and Nina Holden and Yuval Peres},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.02216},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

10 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:08:52.183Z