On the Reliability Function of the Common-Message Broadcast Channel with Variable-Length Feedback

We derive upper and lower bounds on the reliability function for the common-message discrete memoryless broadcast channel with variable-length feedback. We show that the bounds are tight when the broadcast channel is stochastically degraded. For the achievability part, we adapt Yamamoto and Itoh’s coding scheme by controlling the expectation of the maximum of a set of stopping times. For the converse part, we adapt Burnashev’s proof techniques for establishing the reliability functions for (point-to-point) discrete memoryless channels with variable-length feedback and sequential hypothesis testing. Index Terms Variable-length feedback, Reliability function, Error exponent, Broadcast channel, Stochastic degradation