Abstract
The two-sender unicast index coding problem consists of two senders, each having a different set of messages. Some messages may be common to both the senders. Each receiver demands a unique message and has a subset of messages known as its side-information. The senders transmit coded messages by availing the knowledge of the side-information of all the receivers, such that all the receivers are able to decode their demands. The aim is to find the optimal aggregate number of coded transmissions per message length (also called the optimal broadcast rate with finite length messages), and its limiting value as the message length tends to infinity (also called the optimal broadcast rate). In this paper, only linear coding schemes are considered. Optimal linear broadcast rate for any finite message length and optimal linear broadcast rate for a basic class of the two-sender unicast index coding problem are established. Optimal code-constructions are also provided. These results are given in terms of the corresponding results of three independent single-sender sub-problems of the two-sender unicast index coding problem. Proof techniques used to obtain the results for the two-sender problem are shown to be useful in obtaining the results for some classes of the multi-sender unicast index coding problem.