On the list decodability of random linear codes with large error rates

It is well known that a random q-ary code of rate Ω(ε2) is list decodable up to radius (1 - 1/q - ε) with list sizes on the order of 1/ε2, with probability 1 - o(1). However, until recently, a similar statement about random linear codes has until remained elusive. In a recent paper, Cheraghchi, Guruswami, and Velingker show a connection between list decodability of random linear codes and the Restricted Isometry Property from compressed sensing, and use this connection to prove that a random linear code of rate Ω( ε2 /log3(1/ε)) achieves the list decoding properties above, with constant probability. We improve on their result to show that in fact we may take the rate to be Ω(ε2), which is optimal, and further that the success probability is 1 - o(1), rather than constant. As an added benefit, our proof is relatively simple. Finally, we extend our methods to more general ensembles of linear codes. As an example, we show that randomly punctured Reed-Muller codes have the same list decoding properties as the original codes, even when the rate is improved to a constant.