A path splitting and pruning strategy on list decoder for PAC codes

Abstract Recently, Arıkan proposed a polarization‐adjusted convolutional (PAC) codes, demonstrating their superior error correction performance over polar codes at short block lengths. It was confirmed that PAC codes approached the optimal performance achievable with limited code length. This paper proposes a novel low‐complexity list decoding algorithm for PAC codes, incorporating path splitting and pruning strategies based on a set of highly reliable information bits. Simulation results reveal that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces sorting complexity and average list size, all while incurring negligible performance loss. Unlike previous pruning algorithms designed for polar codes, the proposed strategy eliminates the need to individually assess the reliability of decoding paths in each decoding process. Instead, the algorithm minimizes redundant decoding paths through a high‐reliability information bit set, constructed using Monte Carlo experiments.