The symmetric sum-capacity of the Gaussian half-duplex causal cognitive interference channel to within a constant gap

This paper studies the sum-capacity of the Gaussian half-duplex causal cognitive interference channel, a channel model with two transmitter-receiver pairs where a (cognitive) source cooperates with the other (primary) source in sending data through a shared channel. In contrast to the classical cognitive radio model, here the cognitive source can not transmit and receive at the same time and must causally learn the primary message through a noisy channel. Achievable strategies are developed and shown to match known upper bounds on the symmetric sum-capacity of this channel to within a constant gap for all values of channel parameters. In the process, the generalized degrees of freedom of the channel is characterized.