On the complexity of decoding lattices using the Korkin-Zolotarev reduced basis

Upper and lower bounds are derived for the decoding complexity of a general lattice L. The bounds are in terms of the dimension n and the coding gain γ of L, and are obtained based on a decoding algorithm which is an improved version of Kannan´s (1983) method. The latter is currently the fastest known method for the decoding of a general lattice. For the decoding of a point x, the proposed algorithm recursively searches inside an, n-dimensional rectangular parallelepiped (cube), centered at x, with its edges along the Gram-Schmidt vectors of a proper basis of L. We call algorithms of this type recursive cube search (RCS) algorithms. It is shown that Kannan´s algorithm also belongs to this category. The complexity of RCS algorithms is measured in terms of the number of lattice points that need to be examined before a decision is made. To tighten the upper bound on the complexity, we select a lattice basis which is reduced in the sense of Korkin-Zolotarev (1873). It is shown that for any selected basis, the decoding complexity (using RCS algorithms) of any sequence of lattices with possible application in communications (γ⩾1) grows at least exponentially with n and γ. It is observed that the densest lattices, and almost all of the lattices used in communications, e.g., Barnes-Wall lattices and the Leech lattice, have equal successive minima (ESM). For the decoding complexity of ESM lattices, a tighter upper bound and a stronger lower bound result are derived