On LP decoding of polar codes

Polar codes are the first codes to provably achieve capacity on the symmetric binary-input discrete memoryless channel (B-DMC) with low encoding and decoding complexity. The parity check matrix of polar codes is high-density and we show that linear program (LP) decoding fails on the fundamental polytope of the parity check matrix. The recursive structure of the code permits a sparse factor graph representation. We define a new polytope based on the fundamental polytope of the sparse graph representation. This new polytope P is defined in a space of dimension O(N logN) where N is the block length. We prove that the projection of P in the original space is tighter than the fundamental polytope based on the parity check matrix. The LP decoder over P obtains the ML-certificate property. In the case of the binary erasure channel (BEC), the new LP decoder is equivalent to the belief propagation (BP) decoder operating on the sparse factor graph representation, and hence achieves capacity. Simulation results of SC (successive cancellation) decoding, LP decoding over tightened polytopes, and (ML) maximum likelihood decoding are provided. For channels other than the BEC, we discuss why LP decoding over P with a linear objective function is insufficient.