Standard upper and lower bounds on the capacity of relay channels are cut-set (CS), decode-forward (DF), and quantize-forward (QF) rates. For real additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) multicast relay channels with one source node and one relay node, these bounds are shown to be quasi-concave in the receiver signal-to-noise ratios and the squared source-relay correlation coefficient. Furthermore, the CS rates are shown to be quasi-concave in the relay position for a fixed correlation coefficient, and the DF rates are shown to be quasi-concave in the relay position. The latter property characterizes the optimal relay position when using DF. The results extend to complex AWGN channels with random phase variations.
Keywords: capacity; decode-forward; multicast; relaying.