Deterministic coupling conjecture

Let XX and YY be random variables with distributions PXP_X and PYP_Y, and let PXnP_X^n and PYnP_Y^n denote their nn-fold product distributions. Let C(PX,PY)C(P_X,P_Y) be the set of couplings of PXP_X and PYP_Y, and let G(PX,PY)\mathcal{G}(P_X,P_Y) denote the maximal guessing coupling value. A coupling is deterministic when its second variable is a function of its first.

Deterministic coupling conjecture.

G(PXn,PYn)=1\mathcal{G}(P_X^n,P_Y^n)=1

if and only if G(PX,PY)=1\mathcal{G}(P_X,P_Y)=1. Equivalently, there exists a deterministic coupling PXnYnC(PXn,PYn)P_{X^nY^n}\in C(P_X^n,P_Y^n) for which YnY^n is a function of XnX^n if and only if there exists a deterministic coupling PXYC(PX,PY)P_{XY}\in C(P_X,P_Y) for which YY is a function of XX.

This asks whether deterministic couplings can arise only at the one-letter level, rather than appearing for product distributions without a corresponding one-letter coupling. The supplied context gives no resolution, so the conjecture remains open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Lei Yu and Vincent Y. F. Tan, “Asymptotic Coupling and Its Applications in Information Theory”, arXiv:1712.06804 (2021).

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