Outer Bounds on the Secrecy Capacity Region of the 2-user Z Interference Channel With Unidirectional Transmitter Cooperation

This paper derives outer bounds on the secrecy capacity region of the 2-user Z interference channel (Z-IC) with rate-limited unidirectional cooperation between the transmitters. First, the model is studied under the linear deterministic setting. The derivation of the outer bounds on the secrecy capacity region involves careful selection of the side information to be provided to the receivers and using the secrecy constraints at the receivers in a judicious manner. To this end, a novel partitioning of the encoded messages and outputs is proposed for the deterministic model based on the strength of interference and signal. The obtained outer bounds are shown to be tight using the achievable scheme derived by the authors in a previous work. Using the insight obtained from the deterministic model, outer bounds on the secrecy capacity region of the 2-user Gaussian Z-IC are obtained. The equivalence between the outer bounds for both the models is also established. It is also shown that secrecy constraint at the receiver does not hurt the capacity region of the 2-user Z-IC for the deterministic model in the weak/moderate interference regime. On the other hand, the outer bounds developed for the Gaussian case shows that secrecy constraint at the receiver can reduce the capacity region for the weak/moderate interference regime. The study of the relative performance of these bounds reveals insight into the fundamental limits of the 2-user Z-IC with limited rate transmitter cooperation.