Apparatus and method for correcting common phase error in a multi-carrier communication system

An apparatus and a method for compensating for a common phase error in a multi-carrier communication system are provided to control a compensation type adaptively according to a channel environment of the system, thereby improving the efficiency of the entire system. A method for compensating a common phase error in a multi-carrier communication system includes the steps of: detecting an autocorrelation value of a reference signal estimated from a reference symbol, and a cross-correlation value between a channel estimation value of the reference signal and a really received reference signal(815,817); creating the ratio of the autocorrelation value to the cross-correlation value as a exponential value of the common phase error; creating a conjugate value of the exponential value and compensating for the common phase error for symbols expect for the reference symbol among a plurality of the symbols(819,821).