Improved Bounds on the Number of Support Points of the Capacity-Achieving Input for Amplitude Constrained Poisson Channels

Abstract

This work considers a discrete-time Poisson noise channel with an input amplitude constraint $\mathsf{A}$ and a dark current parameter $\lambda$. It is known that the capacity-achieving distribution for this channel is discrete with finitely many points. Recently, for $\lambda=0$, a lower bound of order $\sqrt{\mathsf{A}}$ and an upper bound of order $\mathsf{A} \log^2(\mathsf{A})$ have been demonstrated on the cardinality of the support of the optimal input distribution. In this work, we improve these results in several ways. First, we provide upper and lower bounds that hold for non-zero dark current. Second, we produce a sharper upper bound with a far simpler technique. In particular, for $\lambda=0$, we sharpen the upper bound from the order of $\mathsf{A} \log^2(\mathsf{A})$ to the order of $\mathsf{A}$. Finally, some other additional information about the location of the support is provided.