Indirect Rate Distortion Functions with Side Information: Structural Properties and Multivariate Gaussian Sources

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the indirect source coding problem with side information at both the encoder and decoder, as well as only at the decoder. We first derive structural properties of the two rate distortion functions (RDFs) for general abstract spaces and identify conditions under which the RDFs coincide. For multivariate jointly Gaussian random variables with square-error fidelity, we establish structural properties of the optimal test channels, show that side information at both the encoder and decoder does not reduce compression, and provide water-filling solutions using parallel Gaussian channel realizations. This paper uses a novel realization theory approach to establish achievability of the converse coding theorem lower bounds of the two RDFs.