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Weight Distribution for Non-binary Cluster LDPC
Code Ensemble
Takayuki Nozaki
Kanagawa University, JAPAN
Email: nozaki@kanagawa-u.ac.jp
Masaki Maehara, Kenta Kasai, and Kohichi Sakaniwa
Tokyo Institute of Technology, JAPAN
Email: {maehara, kenta, sakaniwa}@comm.ce.titech.ac.jp
Abstract
In this paper, we derive the average weight distributions for the irregular non-binary cluster low-density parity-check (LDPC)
code ensembles. Moreover, we give the exponential growth rate of the average weight distribution in the limit of large code length.
We show that there exist (2, dc)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles whose normalized typical minimum distances
are strictly positive.
I. INTRODUCTION
Gallager invented low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes [1]. Due to the sparseness of the parity check matrices, LDPC
codes are efciently decoded by the belief propagation (BP) decoder. Optimized LDPC codes can exhibit performance very
close to the Shannon limit [2]. Davey and MacKay [3] have found that non-binary LDPC codes can outperform binary ones.
The LDPC codes are dened by sparse parity check matrices or sparse Tanner graphs. For the non-binary LDPC codes, the
Tanner graphs are represented by bipartite graph with variable nodes and check nodes and labeled edges. The LDPC codes
dened by Tanner graphs with the variable nodes of degree d
v
and the check nodes of degree d
c
are called (d
v
, d
c
)-regular
LDPC codes. It is empirically known that (2, d
c
)-regular non-binary LDPC codes exhibit good decoding performance among
other LDPC codes for the non-binary LDPC code dened over Galois eld of order greater than 32 [4].
Savin and Declercq proposed the non-binary cluster LDPC codes [5]. For the non-binary cluster LDPC code, each edge in
the Tanner graphs is labeled by cluster which is a full-rank p r binary matrix, where p r. In [5], Savin and Declercq
showed that there exist (2, d
c
)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC ensembles whose minimum distance grows linearly with the
code length.
Deriving the weight distribution is important to analyze the decoding performances for the linear codes. In particular, in the
case for LDPC codes, weight distribution gives a bound of decoding error probability under maximum likelihood decoding [6]
and error oors under belief propagation decoding and maximum likelihood decoding [7] [8].
Studies on weight distribution for non-binary LDPC codes date back to [1]. Gallager derived the symbol-weight distribution
of Gallager code ensemble dened over Z/qZ [1]. Kasai et al. derived the average symbol and bit weight distributions and
the exponential growth rates for the irregular non-binary LDPC code ensembles dened over Galois eld F
q
, and showed that
the normalized typical minimum distance does not monotonically grow with q [9]. Andriyanova et al. derive the bit weight
distributions and the exponential growth rates for the regular non-binary LDPC code ensembles dened over Galois eld and
general linear groups [10].
In this paper, we derive the average symbol and bit weight distributions for the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code
ensembles. Moreover, we give the exponential growth rate of the average weight distributions in the limit of large code length.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section II denes the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble.
Section III derives the average weight distributions for the irregular non-binary LDPC code ensembles. Section IV gives the
exponential growth rate of the average weight distributions in the limit of large code length and shows some numerical examples
for the exponential growth rate.
II. PRELIMINARIES
In this section, we review non-binary cluster LDPC code [5] and dene the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble.
We introduce some notations used throughout this paper.
A. Non-binary Cluster LDPC Code
The LDPC codes are dened by sparse parity check matrices or sparse Tanner graphs. For the non-binary LDPC codes, the
Tanner graphs are represented by bipartite graphs with variable nodes and check nodes and labeled edges.
For the non-binary cluster LDPC codes, each edge in the Tanner graphs is labeled by cluster which is a full-rank p r
binary matrix, where p r. Let F
2
be the nite eld of order 2. Note that the non-binary LDPC codes dened by Tanner
graphs labeled by general linear group GL(p, F
2
) are special cases for the non-binary cluster LDPC code with p = r.
We denote the cluster in the edge between the i-th variable node and the j-th check node, by h
j,i
. For the cluster LDPC
codes, r-bits are assigned to each variable node in the Tanner graphs. We refer to the r-bits assigned to the i-th variable node
as symbol assigned to the i-th variable node, and denote it by x
i
F
r
2
.
For integers a, b, we denote the set of integers between a and b, as [a; b]. More precisely, we dene
[a; b] :=
_
{n N | a n b}, a b,
= {}, a > b.
The non-binary cluster LDPC code dened by a Tanner graph G is given as follows:
C(G) =
_
(x
1
, . . . , x
N
) (F
r
2
)
N
|

iNc(j)
h
j,i
x
T
i
= 0
T
F
p
2
j [1; M]
_
,
where N
c
(j) represents the set of indexes of the variable nodes adjacent to the j-th check node. Note that N is called symbol
code length and the bit code length n is given by rN.
B. Irregular Non-binary Cluster LDPC Code Ensemble
Let L and R be the sets of degrees of the variable nodes and the check nodes, respectively. Irregular non-binary cluster
LDPC codes are characterized with the number of variable nodes N, the size of cluster p, r and a pair of degree distribution,
(x) =

iL

i
x
i1
and (x) =

iR

i
x
i1
, where
i
and
i
are the fractions of the edges connected to the variable
nodes and the check nodes of degree i, respectively.
The total number of the edges in the Tanner graph is
E :=
N
_
1
0
(x)dx.
The number of check node M is given by
M =
_
_
1
0
(x)dx
_
1
0
(x)dx
_
N =: N.
Let L
i
and R
j
be the fraction of the variable nodes of degree i and the check nodes of degree j, respectively, i.e.,
L
i
:=

i
i
_
1
0
(x)dx
, R
j
:=

j
j
_
1
0
(x)dx
.
The design rate is given as follows:
1
p
r
.
Assume that we are given the number of variable nodes N, the size of cluster p, r and the degree distribution pair (, ). An
irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) is dened as the following way. There exist L
i
N variable
nodes of degree i and R
j
M check nodes of degree j. A node of degree i has i sockets for its connected edges. Consider a
permutation on the number of edges. Join the i-th socket on the variable node side to the (i)-th socket on the check node
side. The bipartite graphs are chosen with equal probability from all the permutations on the number of edges. Each cluster
in an edge is chosen a full-rank p r binary matrix with equal probability.
III. WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION FOR NON-BINARY CLUSTER LDPC CODE
In this section, we derive the average symbol and bit weight distribution for the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code
ensemble G(N, p, r, , ).
We denote the r-bit representation of x
i
F
r
2
, by (x
i,1
, . . . , x
i,r
). For a given codeword x = (x
1
, x
2
, . . . , x
N
), we denote
the symbol and bit weight of x, by w(x) and w
b
(x). More precisely, we dene
w(x) := |{i [1; N] | x
i
= 0}|,
w
b
(x) := |{(i, j) [1; N] [1; r] | x
i,j
= 0}|.
For a given Tanner graph G, let A
G
() (resp. A
G
b
()) be the number of codeword of symbol and (resp. bit) weight in C(G),
i.e.,
A
G
() = |{x C(G) | w(x) = }|,
A
G
b
() = |{x C(G) | w
b
(x) = }|.
For the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, r, p, , ), we denote the average number of codewords of
symbol and bit weight , by A() and A
b
(), respectively. Since each Tanner graph in the ensemble G = G(N, r, p, , ) is
chosen with uniform probability, the following equations hold:
A() =
1
|G|

GG
A
G
(), A
b
() =
1
|G|

GG
A
G
b
().
Since the number of full-rank binary pr matrix is

r1
i=0
(2
p
2
i
), the number of codes in the ensemble G = G(N, r, p, , )
is given as
|G| = E!
_
r1

i=0
(2
p
2
i
)
_
E
. (1)
A. Symbol Codeword Weight Distribution
First, we will derive the average symbol weight distributions for the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles.
Theorem 1: The average number A() of codewords of symbol weight for the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code
ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) is
A() =
E

k=0
(2
r
1)

coef
_
(P(s, t)Q(u))
N
, s

t
k
u
k
_
_
E
k
_
(2
p
1)
k
, (2)
P(s, t) :=

iL
_
1 + st
i
_
Li
, Q(u) :=

jR
f
j
(u)
Rj
,
f
j
(u) :=
1
2
p
_
{1 + (2
p
1)u}
j
+ (2
p
1)(1 u)
j

, (3)
where coef(g(s, t, u), s
i
t
j
u
k
) is the coefcient of the term s
i
t
j
u
k
of the polynomial g(s, t, u).
Proof: We follow the similar way in [9, Theorem 1].
We refer to an edge as active if the edge connects to a variable node to which is assigned a non-zero symbol. We will count
the average number of codewords A(, k) with symbol weight and the number of active edges k.
Firstly, we count the edge constellations satisfying the constraints of the variable nodes. Consider a variable node v of degree
i. Dene the parameter

as 1 if a non-zero symbol is assigned to the variable node v, and otherwise 0. For a given

[0, 1]
and

k [0, i], let a
i
(

k) be the number of constellations of

k active edges which stem from a variable node of degree i. The
i edges connected to v are active if and only if a non-zero symbol is assigned to the variable node v. Hence, we have
a
i
(

k) =
_

_
1,

= 0,

k = 0,
2
r
1,

= 1,

k = i,
0, otherwise.
The generating function of a
i
(

k) is written as follows:

k
a
i
(

k)s

k
= 1 + (2
r
1)st
i
.
Since there are L
i
N variable nodes of degree i, for a given and k, the number of edge constellations satisfying constraints
of the N variable nodes in the Tanner graph is given by
coef
_

iL
{1 + (2
r
1)st
i
}
LiN
, s

t
k
_
.
This equation is simplied as follows:
(2
r
1)

coef
_

iL
(1 + st
i
)
LiN
, s

t
k
_
. (4)
Secondly, we count the edge constellations satisfying all the constraints of the check nodes. Consider a check node c of
degree j. Let m
j
(

k) be the number of constellations of the

k active edges satisfying a check node of degree j. In other words,
m
j
(

k) = |{(y
1
, y
2
, . . . , y
j
) (F
p
2
)
j
|

j
i=1
y
i
= 0, |{i | y
i
= 0}| =

k}|.
As in [1, Eq. (5.3)], m
j
(

k) is given as follows:
m
j
(

k) =
_
j

k
_
1
2
p
_
(2
p
1)

k
+ (1)

k
(2
p
1)
_
The generating function of m
j
(

k) is written as follows:
f
j
(u) =

k
m
j
(

k)u

k
=
1
2
p
_
{1 + (2
p
1)u}
j
+ (2
p
1)(1 u)
j
_
.
Since there are R
j
N check nodes of degree j, for a given number of active edge k, the number of the constellations satisfying
all the constraints of the check nodes is given as:
coef
_

jR
f
j
(u)
RjN
, u
k
_
. (5)
Thirdly, we count the edge permutation and the number of clusters which satisfy the edge constraints. For a given number
of active edge k, the number of permutations of edges is given by k!(E k)! and the number of clusters which satisfy the
edge constraints is equal to
_
r1

i=1
(2
p
2
i
)
_
k
_
r1

i=0
(2
p
2
i
)
_
Ek
.
Hence, for a given number of active edge k, the number of choices for the permutation of edges and clusters is
k!(E k)!
_
r1

i=1
(2
p
2
i
)
_
k
_
r1

i=0
(2
p
2
i
)
_
Ek
. (6)
By multiplying Eqs. (4), (5) and (6), and dividing by Eq. (1), we obtain the number of codewords A(, k) with symbol
weight and the number of active edges k as
A(, k) =
(2
r
1)

coef
_
(P(s, t)Q(u))
N
, s

t
k
u
k
_
_
E
k
_
(2
p
1)
k
.
Since A() =

E
k=0
A(, k), we get Theorem 1.
Theorem 1 gives the following corollary.
Corollary 1: For the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ), the following equations hold:
A(0) = 1,
A(N) =
(2
r
1)
N

jR
_
(2
p
1)
j
+ (1)
j
(2
p
1)
_
RjN
(2
p
1)
E
(2
p
)
N
.
B. Bit Codeword Weight Distribution
In a similar way to the average symbol weight distribution, we are able to derive the average bit weight distribution for
the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, r, p, , ). At rst, we consider a variable node of degree i. For a
given bit weight

[0, r], let a
b,i
(

k) be the number of constellations of

k active edges which stem from a variable node of
degree i. From the denition of active edges, we have
a
b,i
(

k) =
_

_
1,

= 0,

k = 0,
_
r

_
,

[1; r],

k = i,
0, otherwise.
The generating function of a
b,i
(

k) is given as:

k
a
b,i
(

k)s

k
= 1 +{(1 + s)
r
1}t
i
.
Since there are L
i
N variable nodes of degree i, the number of constellations of k active edges satisfying constraints of the N
variable nodes with bit weight is
coef
_

iL
[1 +{(1 + s)
r
1}t
i
]
LiN
, s

t
k
_
.
By using this equation, in a similar way to proof of the average symbol weight distributions, we obtain the average number
A
b
() of codewords of bit weight as follows:
Theorem 2: Let n = rN be the bit code length. Dene f
j
(u) as in Eq. (3). The average number A
b
() of codewords of bit
weight for the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) is
A
b
() =
E

k=0
coef
_
(P
b
(s, t)Q
b
(u))
n
, s

t
k
u
k
_
_
E
k
_
(2
p
1)
k
,
P
b
(s, t) :=

iL
[1 +{(1 + s)
r
1}t
i
]
Li/r
,
Q
b
(u) :=

jR
f
j
(u)
Rj/r
.
Theorem 2 gives the following corollary.
Corollary 2: For the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ), the following equations hold:
A
b
(0) = 1,
A
b
(n) =

jR
_
(2
p
1)
j
+ (1)
j
(2
p
1)
_
RjN
(2
p
1)
E
(2
p
)
N
.
IV. ASYMPTOTIC ANALYSIS
In this section, we investigate the asymptotic behavior of the average symbol and bit weight distributions for the non-binary
cluster LDPC code ensembles in the limit of large code length.
A. Growth rate
We dene
() := lim
N
1
N
log
2
r A(N) = lim
N
1
rN
log
2
A(N),

b
(
b
) := lim
n
1
n
log
2
A
b
(
b
n),
and refer to them as the exponential growth rate or simply growth rate of the average number of codewords in terms of symbol
and bit weight, respectively. To simplify the notation, we denote log
2
() as log().
With the growth rate, we can roughly estimate the average number of codewords of symbol weight N (resp. bit weight

b
n) by
A(N) (2
r
)
()N
, (resp. A
b
(
b
n) 2

b
(
b
)n
, )
where a
N
b
N
means that lim
N
(1/N) log a
N
/b
N
= 0.
1) Growth Rate of Symbol Weight Distribution: Since the number of terms in Eq. (2) is equal to E + 1, we get
max
k[0;E]
A(, k) A() (E + 1) max
k[0;E]
A(, k).
Therefore, we have
lim
N
1
rN
log A() = lim
N
1
rN
max
k[0;E]
log A(, k)
To calculate this equation, we introduce the following lemma.
Lemma 1: [11, Theorem 2] Let > 0 be some rational number and let p(x
1
, x
2
, . . . , x
m
) be a function such that
p(x
1
, x
2
, . . . , x
m
)

is a multivariate polynomial with non-negative coefcients. Let

k
> 0 be some rational numbers for
k [1; m] and let n
i
be the series of all indexes j such that j/ is an integer and coef(p(x
1
, . . . , x
m
)
j
, x
1j
1
x
mj
m
) = 0.
Then
lim
i
1
n
i
log coef(p(x
1
, . . . , x
m
)
ni
, (x
1
1
x
m
m
)
ni
) = inf
x1,...,xm>0
log
p(x
1
, . . . , x
m
)
x
1
1
x
m
m
.
A point (x
1
, . . . , x
m
) achieves the minimum of the function p(x
1
, . . . , x
m
)/(x
1
1
. . . x
m
m
), if and only if it satises the following
equation for all k [1; m]:
x
k
p(x
1
, . . . , x
m
)

x
k

k
p(x
1
, . . . , x
m
)

= 0.
From Theorem 1 and Lemma 1, we obtain the following theorem.
Theorem 3: Dene = /N, := k/N and := E/N. The growth rate () of the average number of codewords of
normalized symbol weight for the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) with sufciently large
N is given by, for 0 < < 1,
() = sup
>0
inf
s>0,t>0,u>0
1
r
_
log P(s, t) + log Q(u) h
_

_
log(tu(2
p
1)) log
_
s
2
r
1
__
=: sup
>0
inf
s>0,t>0,u>0
(, , s, t, u)
=: sup
>0
(, ), (7)
where h(x) := xlog x (1 x) log(1 x) for 0 < x < 1. A point (s, t, u) which achieves the minimum of the function
(, , s, t, u) is given in a solution of the following equations:
=
s
P
P
s
=

iL
L
i
st
i
1 + st
i
, (8)
=
t
P
P
t
=

iL
L
i
ist
i
1 + st
i
, (9)
=
u
Q
Q
u
=

jR
R
j
u
f
j
(u)
f
j
u
(u), (10)
where
f
j
u
(u) = j
2
p
1
2
p
[{1 + (2
p
1)u}
j1
(1 u)
j1
].
The point which gives the maximum of (, ) needs to satisfy the stationary condition
= (2
p
1)tu( ). (11)
From Corollary 1 and the denition of growth rate, we derive the growth rate of average number of codewords with = 0, 1
as follows:
Corollary 3: For the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) in the limit of large symbol code
length N, the following equations hold:
(0) = 0,
(1) =
1
r
_
log(2
r
1) log(2
p
1) p +

jR
R
j
log{(2
p
1)
j
+ (1)
j
(2
p
1)}
_
.
Moreover, by letting p, r tend to innity with a xed ratio, we have
(1) 1
p
r
,
namely, (1) tends to the design rate.
For a xed normalized symbol weight , the intermediate variables s, t, u and are derived from Eqs. (8), (9), (10) and
(11). Hence, the intermediate variables s, t, u and are represented as functions of . Thus, we denote those intermediate
variables, by s(), t(), u(), ().
The derivation of () in terms of is simply expressed as following lemma.
Lemma 2: For s > 0 such that Eqs. (8), (9), (10) and (11) hold, we have
d
d
() =
1
r
log
s()
2
r
1
.
Proof: We follow the similar way in [12].
For a xed , we denote the point achieving the maximum of (, ) by

and the point achieving the minimum of
(,

, s, t, u) by ( s,

t, u). Then, () = (,

, s,

t, u) holds and

, s,

t, u satisfy Eqs. (8), (9), (10) and (11). From (7), we

have
d()
d
=
d
d
(,

, s,

t, u)
=
1
r ln 2
_
1
P
dP
d


s
d s
d

t
d

t
d
+
1
Q
dQ
d

u
d u
d
+
d

d
ln

(2
p
1)

t u
ln
s
(2
r
1)
_
. (12)
From (8) and (9), we have
1
P
dP
d
=
1
P
P
s
d s
d
+
1
P
P

t
d

t
d
=

s
d s
d
+

t
d

t
d
.
In other words, the sum of the rst three terms of Eq. (12) is equal to 0. Similarly, from (10), we have
1
Q
dQ
d
=
1
Q
Q
u
d u
d
=

u
d u
d
,
i.e., the sum of forth and fth terms of Eq. (12) is equal to 0. From (11), we see that the sixth term of Eq. (12) is equal to 0.
This concludes the proof.
2) Growth Rate of Bit Weight Distribution: In a similar way to symbol weight, we can derive the growth rate for the average
number of codewords of bit weight. Hence, we omit the proofs in this section.
Theorem 4: Dene
b
= /n,
b
:= k/n and
b
:= E/n. The growth rate
b
(
b
) of the average number of codewords of
normalized bit weight
b
for the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) with sufciently large N
is given by, for 0 <
b
< 1,

b
(
b
) = sup

b
>0
inf
s>0,t>0,u>0
_
log P
b
(s, t) + log Q
b
(u)
b
h
_

b
_

b
log(tu(2
p
1))
b
log s
_
=: sup

b
>0
inf
s>0,t>0,u>0

b
(
b
,
b
, s, t, u)
=: sup

b
>0

b
(
b
,
b
).
A point (s, t, u) which achieves the minimum of the function
b
(
b
,
b
, s, t, u) is given in a solution of the following equations:

b
=
s
P
b
P
b
s
=

iL
L
i
(1 + s)
r1
st
i
1 +{(1 + s)
r
1}t
i
, (13)

b
=
t
P
b
P
b
t
=

iL
L
i
r
i{(1 + s)
r
1}t
i
1 +{(1 + s)
r
1}t
i
, (14)

b
=
u
Q
b
Q
b
u
=

jR
R
j
r
u
f
j
(u)
f
j
(u)
u
(15)
The point
b
which gives the maximum of
b
(
b
,
b
) needs to satisfy the stationary condition

b
= (2
p
1)tu(
b

b
).
Corollary 4: For the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) in the limit of large bit code length
n, the following equations hold:

b
(0) = 0,

b
(1) =
b
log(2
p
1)
p
r
+

jR
R
j
r
log{(2
p
1)
j
+ (1)
j
(2
p
1)}.
Moreover, by letting p, r tend to innity with xed ratio, we have

b
(1)
p
r
.
Lemma 3: For s > 0 such that Eq. (13), (14) and (15) hold, we have
d
b
d
b
(
b
) = log s(
b
).
B. Analysis of Small Weight Codeword
In this section, we investigate the growth rate of the average number of codewords of symbol and bit weight with small .
Theorem 5: For the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) with
2
> 0, the growth rate () of
the average number of codewords in terms of symbol weight, in the limit of large symbol code length for small , is given by
() =

r
log
_
2
p
1
(2
r
1)

(0)

(1)
_
+ o(), (16)
where we denote f(x) = o(g(x)) if and only if lim
x0

f(x)
g(x)

= 0 and where

(0)

(1) =
2

jR
(j 1)
j
.
Proof: Note that for > 0,
() = (0) +
d
+

d
(0) + o(),
where
d
+

d
(0) := lim
0
() (0)

= lim
0
d
d
().
From Corollary 3, we have (0) = 0. Hence, we will calculate lim
0
d
d
(). From Lemma 2, we have
lim
0
d
d
() =
1
r
lim
0
log
s()
2
r
1
. (17)
Recall that s() satises Eqs. (8), (9), (10) and (11). From Eq. (8), for 0, it holds that st
i
0 for i L. By using this
and Eq. (9), we have 0. Notice that
f
j
(u) = 1 +
_
j
2
_
(2
p
1)u
2
+ o(u
2
). (18)
By combining Eqs. (10) and (18), and 0, we get
=

(1)(2
p
1)u
2
+ o(u
2
).
Substituting this equation into Eq. (11), we have
t =

(1)u + o(u). (19)

The combination of this equation and u 0 gives t 0. Since t 0 and
2
> 0, from Eq. (9), we get
=
2
st
2
+ o(t
2
).
Substituting this equation into Eq. (11), we have
u =
1
2
p
1

2
st + o(t). (20)
Combining Eqs. (19) and (20), we have for 0
s() = (2
p
1)
1

(0)

(1)
.
Thus, from Eq. (17), we obtain
lim
0
d
d
() =
1
r
log
_
2
r
1
2
p
1

(0)

(1)
_
.
This leads Theorem 5.
Similarly, the growth rate of the average number of codewords of bit weight with small weight
b
is given in the following
theorem.
Theorem 6: For the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) with
2
> 0, the growth rate
b
(
b
)
of the average number of codewords in terms of bit weight, in the limit of large bit code length for small
b
, is given by

b
(
b
) =
b
log
__
2
p
1

(0)

(1)
+ 1
_
1/r
1
_
+ o(
b
).
We dene

:= inf{ > 0 | () 0},

b
:= inf{
b
> 0 |
b
(
b
) 0},
-0.5
0
0.5
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
G
r
o
w
t
h

r
a
t
e
p=2,r=1
p=4,r=2
p=6,r=3
p=8,r=4
p=10,r=5
p=12,r=6
p=14,r=7
p=16,r=8
p=18,r=9

Fig. 1. Growth rates to the average symbol weight distributions for the (2, 8)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles with the cluster size
(p, r) = (2, 1), (4, 2), . . . , (18, 9).
and refer to them as the normalized typical minimum distance in terms of symbol and bit weight, respectively. Recall that
the average number of codeword of symbol weight N (resp. bit weight
b
n) is approximated by A(N) 2
r()N
(resp.
A
b
(
b
n) 2

b
(
b
)n
). Since () < 0 (resp.
b
(
b
) < 0) for (0,

) (resp. for
b
(0,

b
)), there are exponentially few
codewords of symbol weight N (resp. bit weight
b
n) for (0,

) (resp. for
b
(0,

b
)).
Theorem 5 and 6 gives the following corollary.
Corollary 5: For the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble G(N, p, r, , ) with sufciently large N, the
normalized typical minimum distances

and

b
in terms of symbol and bit weight, respectively, are strictly positive if

(0)

(1) <
2
p
1
2
r
1
. (21)
Remark 1: For the non-binary LDPC code ensembles dened over nite eld F
2
p, the normalized typical minimum distances
are strictly positive if

(0)

(1) < 1 [9]. For the non-binary LDPC code ensembles dened by the parity check matrices over
general linear group GL(p, F
2
), a necessary condition that the normalized typical minimum distances are strictly positive is also

(0)

(1) < 1 from Corollary 5 with p = r. On the other hand, in the case for the non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles,
a necessary condition that the normalized typical minimum distances are strictly positive depends on not only

(0)

(1) but
also the size of cluster p, r as in Corollary 5.
Therefore, for any degree distribution pair (, ), we are able to satisfy Eq. (21) by sufciently large p, r with xed ratio,
i.e., for xed designed rate and degree distribution pair.
C. Numerical Examples
In this section, we show some numerical examples of the growth rates for the cluster non-binary LDPC code ensembles.
As an example, we employ the (2, 8)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC codes. To keep the design rate at half, we x the ratio
of the cluster size as p/r = 2.
Figures 1 and 2 give the growth rates to the average symbol weight distributions for the cluster size (p, r) =
(2, 1), (4, 2), . . . , (18, 9). As shown in Corollary 3, (1) tends to the design rate 0.5. From Figure 2, we see that the
slop of the growth rate at = 0 are negative and the normalized typical minimum distance

is strictly positive for

(p, r) = (6, 3), (8, 4), . . . , (18, 9). This conrms Corollary 5.
Figures 3 and 4 give the growth rates to the average bit weight distributions for the cluster size (p, r) =
(2, 1), (4, 2), . . . , (18, 9). The black solid curve in Figure 3 shows the growth rate of the binary random code ensemble of rate
0.5. As shown in Corollary 4,
b
(1) tends to 0.5. Moreover, we see that the curves in
b
> 1/2 converge to the growth rate
of the binary random code ensemble. From Figure 4, we see that the slop of the growth rate at
b
= 0 are negative and the
normalized typical minimum distance

b
is strictly positive for (p, r) = (6, 3), (8, 4), . . . , (18, 9). This conrms Corollary 5.
-1.0e-03
-5.0e-04
0.0e+00
5.0e-04
0.000 0.005 0.010 0.015 0.020 0.025 0.030 0.035
G
r
o
w
t
h

r
a
t
e
p=2,r=1
p=4,r=2
p=6,r=3
p=8,r=4
p=10,r=5
p=12,r=6
p=14,r=7
p=16,r=8
p=18,r=9

Fig. 2. Growth rates to the average symbol weight distributions for the (2, 8)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles with the cluster size
(p, r) = (2, 1), (4, 2), . . . , (18, 9).
-0.5
0.0
0.5
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
G
r
o
w
t
h

r
a
t
e
p=2,r=1
p=4,r=2
p=6,r=3
p=8,r=4
p=10,r=5
p=12,r=6
p=14,r=7
p=16,r=8
p=18,r=9
random code

b
Fig. 3. Growth rates to the average bit weight distributions for the (2, 8)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles with the cluster size (p, r) =
(2, 1), (4, 2), . . . , (18, 9). The black solid curve (random code) gives the growth rate for the binary random code ensemble of rate 0.5.
Figures 5 and 6 give the normalized typical minimum distance

and

b
of the symbol and bit weight distribution,
respectively, for the cluster size (p, r) = (2, 1), (4, 2), . . . , (18, 9). From Figures 5 and 6, we see that the normalized typical
minimum distances

and

b
does not monotonically increase with the size of cluster (p, r). In this case, the normalized
typical minimum distances

b
have the local maximum at (p, r) = (12, 6).
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have derived the average weight distributions for the irregular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles.
Moreover, we have given the exponential growth rate of the average weight distribution in the limit of large code length.
-0.0010
-0.0008
-0.0006
-0.0004
-0.0002
0.0000
0.0002
0.000 0.005 0.010 0.015
G
r
o
w
t
h

r
a
t
e
p=2,r=1
p=4,r=2
p=6,r=3
p=8,r=4
p=10,r=5
p=12,r=6
p=14,r=7
p=16,r=8
p=18,r=9

b
Fig. 4. Growth rates to the average bit weight distributions for the (2, 8)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles with the cluster size (p, r) =
(2, 1), (4, 2), . . . , (18, 9).
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
(2,1) (4,2) (6,3) (8,4) (10,5) (12,6) (14,7) (16,8) (18,9)

(p, r)
Fig. 5. The normalized typical minimum distance

of the symbol weight distribution for the (2,8)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensemble with
the cluster size (p, r) = (2, 1), (4, 2), . . . , (18, 9).
We have shown that there exist (2, d
c
)-regular non-binary cluster LDPC code ensembles whose normalized typical minimum
distances are strictly positive.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows. The work of K. Kasai was supported by the grant from the
Storage Research Consortium.
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0.000
0.005
0.010
0.015
(2,1) (4,2) (6,3) (8,4) (10,5) (12,6) (14,7) (16,8) (18,9)

b
(p, r)
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