Fast Search Method for Large Polarization Kernels

Abstract: A novel search method for large polarization kernels is proposed. The algorithm produces a kernel with given partial distances by employing the depth-first search combined with the computation of coset leaders weight tables and sufficient conditions of code non-equivalence. Using the proposed method, we improved all existing lower bounds on the maximum error exponent for kernels of size from 17 to 29. We also obtained kernels which admit low complexity processing by the recently proposed recursive trellis algorithm. Numerical results demonstrate the advantage of polar codes with the obtained kernels compared with shortened polar codes and polar codes with small kernels.