ISIT 2001, Washington, USA, June 24 June 29, 2001

Sucient Conditions of Existence of Fix-Free Codes

Yekhanin Sergey1
Department of Cybernetics and Computer Science Moscow State University e-mail: yekhanin@cityline.ru Abstract Code is x-free if no codeword is a prex or a sux of any other. In this paper we improve the best-known sucient conditions on existence of x-free codes by a new explicit construction. We also discuss the well-known Kraft-type conjecture on the existence of x-free codes basing on the results obtained by computer checking. Theorem 3: Let k1 , k2 , . . . , kn be arbitrary nonnegative integers. Suppose that the following statements are true: (k1 , . . . , kn ) 3 , 4 kp kp+1 1 + p+1 . 2p 2 2

p : k1 = . . . = kp1 = 0, and

I. Introduction
Let C (k1 , k2 , . . . , kn ) denote a binary variable-length code C with k1 codewords of length 1, k2 codewords of length 2, . . . and kn codewords of length n. Let k1 , . . . , kn be arbitrary positive integers. To simlify
n

further presentation we denote

i=1

ki 2i

by (k1 , . . . , kn ).

Recall that a code is called prex-free {resp. sux-free}, if no codeword is beginning {resp. ending} of another one. Code C , which is simultaneously prex-free and sux-free is called x-free. Our goal is to develop sucient conditions on the existence of x-free codes. The well-known Kraft-type conjecture [1] by R. Ahlswede is that for any values of parameters k1 , k2 , . . . , kn , such that 3 , (1) 4 there exists a x-free code C (k1 , k2 , . . . , kn ) The next section gives a short overview of particular cases in which the conjecture is proved. The following lemma [1] shows that, if true, bound (1) is the best possible. Lemma 1: For any > 0 there exist parameters k1 , k2 , . . . , kn such that (k1 , k2 , . . . , kn ) 3 + and there 4 exists no x-free code C (k1 , k2 , . . . , kn ). (k1 , k2 , . . . , kn )

This implies the existence of x-free code C (k1 , k2 , . . . , kn ). Corollary 1: If (k1 , . . . , kn ) 3 and k1 = 1 then there 4 exists a x-free code C (k1 , k2 , . . . , kn ). Note, that all the theorems formulated above are particular cases of conjecture (1). We have applied computer programming to check the conjecture for the small values of n. Thus the following theorem was obtained. Theorem 4: Let k1 , . . . , kn be arbitrary nonnegative inteand n 8 then there exists gers such that (k1 , . . . , kn ) 3 4 a x-free code C (k1 , . . . , kn ). One more sucient condition of existence of x-free codes is given in [2].

III. Sketch of the proof

We say that set D {0, 1}n is left regular {right regular} if all (n 1)-prexes {suxes} of words from D are pairwisely distinct. Let C (k1 , . . . , kn ) be a x-free code. We say that a vector w {0, 1}n is prex-free {sux-free} over C if no codeword (C )} we c C is a prex {sux} of w. Futher by M (C ) {M denote the set all binary vectors of length n that are prex-free {sux-free} over C . Denition: We say that x-free code C (k1 , . . . , kn ) is a (C ) is left regular and -system if M (C ) is right regular, M . (k1 , . . . , kn ) = 1 2 We split the proof into two sections. Firstly we study the properties and develop explicit constructions of -systems. The main result of this section is formulated by kn1 kn 1 Lemma 2: If k1 = . . . = kn2 = 0, 2n 1 + 2n = 2 , then there exists a -system C (k1 , k2 , . . . , kn ). SecondIy we study the relationship between -systems and x-free codes and prove that an arbitrary -system C1 (k1 , . . . , kp ) can be extended to x-free code C2 (k1 , . . . , kp + 3 b, . . . , kn ), where (k1 , . . . , kp + b, . . . , kn ) 4 .

II. Statement of Results

In this section we formulate the known sucient conditions on existence of x-free codes. Proofs of the next two theorems can be found in [1]. 1 Theorem 1: If (k1 , . . . , kn ) 2 then there exists a xfree C (k1 , . . . , kn ). Theorem 2: Suppose that if i < j and ki > 0 and kj > 0, 3 implies the existence of then i < 2j . Then (k1 , . . . , kn ) 4 a x-free code C (k1 , . . . , kn ). The main result presented in current paper is formulated by the next theorem. The sketch of proof is given in section three.
1 This work was supported by the Russian Fond for Fundamental Researches (project 01-01-00495)

References
[1] R. Ahlswede, B. Balkenhol, L. Kharchatrian, Some Properties of Fix-Free Codes. In Proc. First INTAS International Seminar on Coding Theory and Combinatorics, pp. 20-33, Thazkhadzor, Armenia, 1996. [2] Chunxuan Ye, Raymond W. Yeung, On Fix-Free Codes. In Proc. ISIT 2000, p. 426, Sorrento, Italy, June 25-30, 2000.