LAUSR

We consider the use of surfaces as topological spaces in order to provide an answer to the quantization problem of a discrete memoryless channel (DMC). The aim is to identify the geometric and algebraic properties of the surface associated with the embedding of such a DMC. The procedure is based on the following steps: knowing the complete bipartite graph associated with a given DMC: (1) to determine the minimum and the maximum genus of the corresponding surfaces in which the given graph is embedded; (2) knowing the genus, to specify the roots as the elements of a Farey sequence of a planar algebraic curve; (3) to determine the solutions of a second-order Fuchsian differential equation as the generators of the corresponding Fuchsian group. We consider the cases of the hypergeometric and Heun equations, with three and four regular singular points, respectively. By means of this procedure, the fundamental region associated with the Fuchsian group is identified and this is the region where the planar algebraic curve is uniformized. A generalization of the quantization problem related to an m-ary input n-ary output symmetric channel viewed as a complete bipartite graph $$K_{m,n}$$Km,n, by use of the embedding of this channel in compact surfaces is straightforward.