Some Results on MAP Decoding of Non-Binary LDPC Codes Over the BEC

In this paper, the transmission over the binary erasure channel (BEC) using non-binary LDPC (NBLDPC) codes is considered. The concept of peeling decoder and stopping sets is generalized to NBLDPC codes. Using these generalizations, a combinatorial characterization of decoding failures of NBLDPC codes is given, under assumption that the Belief Propagation (BP) decoder is used. Then, the residual ensemble of codes resulted by the BP decoder is defined and the design rate and the expectation of total number of codewords of the residual ensemble are computed. The decoding failure criterion combined with the density evolution analysis helps us to compute the asymptotic residual degree distribution for NBLDPC codes. Our approach to compute the residual degree distribution on the check node side is not efficient as it is based on enumeration of all the possible connections on the check node side which satisfy the decoding failure criterion. So, the computation of the asymptotic check node side residual degree distribution and further part of our analysis is performed for NBLDPC codes over GF₂m with m = 2 . In order to show that asymptotically almost every code in such LDPC ensemble has a rate equal to the design rate, we generalize the argument of the Maxwell construction to NBLDPC codes, defined over GF₂². It is also observed that, like in the binary setting, the Maxwell construction, relating the performance of MAP and BP decoding holds in this setting.