Bounds and constructions of codes over symbol-pair read channels

Cassuto and Blaum recently studied the symbol-pair channel, a model where every two consecutive symbols are read together. This special channel structure is motivated by the limitations of the reading process in high density data storage systems, where it is no longer possible to read individual symbols. In this new paradigm, the errors are not individual symbol errors, but rather symbol-pair errors, where at least one of the symbols is erroneous. In this work, we study bounds and constructions of codes over the symbol-pair channel. We extend the Johnson bound and the linear programming bound for this channel and show that they improve upon existing bounds. We then propose new code constructions that improve upon existing results for pair-distance six, seven, and ten.