Capacity-Achieving Distributions for the Discrete-Time Poisson Channel—Part I: General Properties and Numerical Techniques

Despite being an accepted model for a wide variety of optical channels, few general results on optimal signalling for discrete-time Poisson (DTP) channels are known. Among the most significant is that under simultaneous peak and average constraints, the capacity-achieving distributions are discrete with a finite number of mass points. In this paper, several fundamental properties of capacity-achieving distributions for DTP channels are …