BARC/MIAO talk by Ramprasad Saptharishi

Tuesday, October 13, 2026, 13:30-14:30, Ramprasad Saptharishi, Associate Professor at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India, will be giving a BARC/MIAO talk on "Reed-Solomon codes at capacity: a transparent proof of some recent breakthroughs".

Abstract:
Recently, Brakensiek, Chen, Putterman, Zhang and Zheng proved a remarkable result that Reed-Solomon codes over large enough prime fields are list-decodable up to capacity, and admits an efficient list-decoding algorithm. This was shortly extended by Jeronimo to related questions of “proximity gaps” for these codes. Both of these theorems are remarkable achievements in the field of coding theory, but several technical aspects of the proofs were quite opaque and … artificial (ahem). 

In this talk, Ramprasad presents a more transparent proof of the result. He will first set up the general context of coding theory, the usual template of algebraic decoding algorithms, and see the complete proof of the BCPZZ result.  

If time allows it, Ramprasad will also discuss the main ideas for the related question of proximity gaps. 

Based on joint work with Prahladh Harsha and Mrinal Kumar (https://eccc.weizmann.ac.il/report/2026/232/)

Bio: 
Ramprasad Saptharishi is an Associate Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India. He obtained his PhD from the Chennai Mathematical Institute and subsequently had postdoc stints at Microsoft Research Bangalore and at Tel Aviv University. His interests are broadly in the area of computational complexity, and more specifically in algebraic complexity, coding theory and pseudorandomness.
Currently, Ramprasad is visiting BARC on a sabbatical stay with the University of Copenhagen in October and November of 2026.

Host:
Srikanth Srinivasan and Jakob Nordström