Multiple-Output Channel Simulation and Lossy Compression of Probability Distributions

Abstract

We consider a variant of the channel simulation problem with a single input and multiple outputs, where Alice observes a probability distribution $P$ from a set of prescribed probability distributions $\mathcal{P}$, and sends a prefix-free codeword $W$ to Bob to allow him to generate $n$ i.i.d. random variables $X_1,X_{2,}...,X_n$ which follow the distribution $P$. This can also be regarded as a lossy compression setting for probability distributions. This paper describes encoding schemes for three cases of $P$: $P$ is a distribution over positive integers, $P$ is a continuous distribution over $[0,1]$ with a non-increasing pdf, and $P$ is a continuous distribution over $[0,\infty )$ with a non-increasing pdf. We show that the growth rate of the expected codeword length is sub-linear in $n$ when a power law bound is satisfied. An application of multiple-outputs channel simulation is the compression of probability distributions.

11 pages, 3 figures