About Optimal Prefix Codes over Countably Infinite Alphabets: Probabilistic Intervals for the Codeword Lengths Assignment

Abstract

For the discrete memoryless sources with a countably infinite alphabet, we prove that for any positive integer $k$, there exists a corresponding probability interval such that if the largest symbol probability $p_1$ falls in this interval, the optimal code length for the symbol equals $k$. Furthermore, for infinite sources, we provide a criterion to determine probability distributions whose optimal code length assignment follows the pattern $l_i^{best}=i$, for $i\ge 1$. Compared with the existing conclusion for anti-uniform sources, the proposed criterion requires less information for verification.