On the Capacity Region for Index Coding

A new inner bound on the capacity region of a general index coding problem is established. Unlike most existing bounds that are based on graph theoretic or algebraic tools, the bound is built on a random coding scheme and optimal decoding, and has a simple polymatroidal single-letter expression. The utility of the inner bound is demonstrated by examples that include the capacity region for all index coding problems with up to five messages (there are 9846 nonisomorphic ones).