Anuj Kumar Yadav

Anuj Kumar Yadav, Yanina Y. Shkel

Majorization is a stochastic ordering relation that compares the relative diversity of probability distributions with numerous applications in econometrics, spectral theory, and ecology. It is well-known that the majorization partial order forms a complete lattice on the set of ordered probability distributions. In this work, we study the properties of Rényi entropy on the majorization lattice. We establish a fundamental relation between the comonotone coupling and the independent coupling associated with a collection of marginal distributions. Consequently, we show that, for every order $ α\in [0,\infty] $, the Rényi entropy is subadditive on the majorization lattice. We further characterize the supermodular regime, showing that Rényi entropy is supermodular on the majorization lattice for $ α\in \{0\} \cup [1,\infty] $.

Amitalok J. Budkuley, Pranav Joshi, Manideep Mamindlapally et al.

Commitment is an important cryptographic primitive. It is well known that noisy channels are a promising resource to realize commitment in an information-theoretically secure manner. However, oftentimes, channel behaviour may be poorly characterized thereby limiting the commitment throughput and/or degrading the security guarantees; particularly problematic is when a dishonest party, unbeknown to the honest one, can maliciously alter the channel characteristics. Reverse elastic channels (RECs) are an interesting class of such unreliable channels, where only a dishonest committer, say, Alice can maliciously alter the channel. RECs have attracted recent interest in the study of several cryptographic primitives. Our principal contribution is the REC commitment capacity characterization; this proves a recent related conjecture. A key result is our tight converse which analyses a specific cheating strategy by Alice. RECs are closely related to the classic unfair noisy channels (UNCs); elastic channels (ECs), where only a dishonest receiver Bob can alter the channel, are similarly related. In stark contrast to UNCs, both RECs and ECs always exhibit positive commitment throughput for all non-trivial parameters. Interestingly, our results show that channels with exclusive one-sided elasticity for dishonest parties, exhibit a fundamental asymmetry where a committer with one-sided elasticity has a more debilitating effect on the commitment throughput than a receiver.