Common information measures the amount of matching variables in two or more information sources. It is ubiquitous in information theory and related areas such as theoretical computer science and discrete probability. However, because there are multiple notions of common information, a unified understanding of the deep interconnections between them is lacking. In this monograph the authors fill this gap by leveraging a small set of mathematical techniques that are applicable across seemingly disparate problems. The reader is introduced in Part I to the operational tasks and properties...
Common information measures the amount of matching variables in two or more information sources. It is ubiquitous in information theory and related ar...