Performance analysis of the minimum-mean-squareerror (MMSE) linear multiuser detector is considered in an environment of nonorthogonal signaling and additive white Gaussian noise. In particular, the behavior of the multiple-access interference (MAI) at the output of the MMSE detector is examined under various asymptotic conditions, including: large signal-tonoise ratio; large near-far ratios; and large numbers of users. These results suggest that the MAI-plus-noise contending with the

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... on of a desired user is approximately Gaussian in many cases of interest. For the particular case of two users, it is shown that the maximum divergence between the output MAIplus-noise and a Gaussian distribution having the same mean and variance is quite small in most cases of interest. It is further proved in this two-user case that the probability of error of the MMSE detector is better than that of the decorrelating linear detector for all values of normalized crosscorrelations not greater than 1 2 2 + p 3 = 0:9659: Index Terms-Asymptotic normality, divergence, decorrelating detector. MMSE detection, multiuser detection, probability of error.