We discuss two methods to encode one qubit into six physical qubits. Each of our two examples corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error. Our first example is a degenerate six-qubit quantum error-correcting code. We explicitly provide the stabilizer generators, encoding circuit, codewords, logical Pauli operators, and logical controlled NOT operator for this code. We also show how to convert this code into a nontrivial subsystem code that saturates the subsystem Singleton bound. We then prove that a six-qubit code without entanglement assistance cannot simultaneously possess a Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) stabilizer and correct an arbitrary single-qubit error. A corollary of this result is that the Steane seven-qubit code is the smallest single-error correcting CSS code. Our second example is the construction of a nondegenerate six-qubit CSS entanglement-assisted code. This code uses one bit of entanglement (an ebit) shared between the sender and the receiver and corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error. The code we obtain is globally equivalent to the Steane seven-qubit code and thus corrects an arbitrary error on the receiver's half of the ebit as well. We prove that this code is the smallest code with a CSS structure that uses only one ebit and corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error on the sender's side. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages for each of the two codes.
We discuss two methods to encode one qubit into six physical qubits. Each of our two examples corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error. Our first example is a degenerate six-qubit quantum error-correcting code. We explicitly provide the stabilizer generators, encoding circuit, codewords, logical Pauli operators, and logical controlled NOT operator for this code. We also show how to convert this code into a nontrivial subsystem code that saturates the subsystem Singleton bound. We then prove that a six-qubit code without entanglement assistance cannot simultaneously possess a Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) stabilizer and correct an arbitrary single-qubit error. A corollary of this result is that the Steane seven-qubit code is the smallest single-error correcting CSS code. Our second example is the construction of a nondegenerate six-qubit CSS entanglement-assisted code. This code uses one bit of entanglement (an ebit) shared between the sender and the receiver and corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error. The code we obtain is globally equivalent to the Steane seven-qubit code and thus corrects an arbitrary error on the receiver's half of the ebit as well. We prove that this code is the smallest code with a CSS structure that uses only one ebit and corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error on the sender's side. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages for each of the two codes.
In the current thesis we first talk about the six-qubit quantum error-correcting code and show its connections to entanglement-assisted error-correcting coding theory and then to subsystem codes. This code bridges the gap between the five-qubit (perfect) and Steane codes. We discuss two methods to encode one qubit into six physical qubits. Each of the two examples corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error. The first example is a degenerate six-qubit quantum error-correcting code. We prove that a six-qubit code without entanglement assistance cannot simultaneously possess a Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) stabilizer and correct an arbitrary single-qubit error. A corollary of this result is that the Steane seven-qubit code is the smallest single-error correcting CSS code. Our second example is the construction of a non-degenerate six-qubit CSS entanglement-assisted code. This code uses one bit of entanglement (an ebit) shared between the sender (Alice) and the receiver (Bob) and corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error. In the second half of this thesis we explore the yet uncharted and relatively undiscovered area of quantum steganography. Steganography is the process of hiding secret information by embedding it in an innocent message. We present protocols for hiding quantum information in a codeword of a quantum error-correcting code passing through a channel. Using either a shared classical secret key or shared entanglement Alice disguises her information as errors in the channel. Bob can retrieve the hidden information, but an eavesdropper (Eve) with the power to monitor the channel, but without the secret key, cannot distinguish the message from channel noise. We analyze how difficult it is for Eve to detect the presence of secret messages, and estimate rates of steganographic communication and secret key consumption for certain protocols.
We propose fault-tolerant quantum encoders for Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) and non-CSS codes over qudits by utilizing g-partite maximally entangled states. The qudits are grouped into g contiguous blocks such that entangled states are shared across the blocks, and multiqudit gates are applied locally to restrict the error propagation within each block. We also propose a transversal fault-tolerant block decoder to decode the blocks individually and recover the complete encoded quantum information. The optimum value of g to obtain an improvement in the probability of error propagation of the proposed encoders against non-fault-tolerant schemes is analytically determined for application in the encoding circuit. The proposed fault-tolerant scheme with entanglement assistance scales linearly with the number of g-partite entangled states and overcomes the limitations of diminishing coding rates for higher levels of concatenation within the concatenated coding scheme. We validate the proposed ideas by constructing fault-tolerant encoding circuits for the non-CSS [[5,1,3]]3 code and the [[7,1,3]]3 CSS code through illustrative examples. We reduced the probability of error propagation from 0.248 to 0.212 for the [[5,1,3]]3 code and from 0.207 to 0.174 for the [[7,1,3]]3 code. For example, over [[100,70]]2 quantum code without any fault tolerance, using three-partite entangled pairs, one can get two orders of improvement (1e-2) in the probability of error propagation compared to the non-fault-tolerant encoder by encoding over 190 physical qubits with the same number of stabilizers.
Quantum error-correcting code for higher dimensional systems can, in general, be directly constructed from the codes for qubit systems. What remains unknown is whether there exist efficient code design techniques for higher dimensional systems. In this paper, we propose a 7-qutrit error-correcting code for the ternary quantum system and show that this design formulation has no equivalence in qubit systems. This code is optimum in the number of qutrits required to correct a single error while maintaining the CSS structure. This degenerate CSS code can (i) correct up to seven simultaneous phase errors and a single bit error, (ii) correct two simultaneous bit errors on pre-defined pairs of qutrits on eighteen out of twenty-one possible pairs, and (iii) in terms of the cost of implementation, the depth of the circuit of this code is only two more than that of the ternary Steane code. Our proposed code shows that it is possible to design better codes explicitly for ternary quantum systems instead of simply carrying over codes from binary quantum systems.
This chapter deals with the subject of quantum error correction and the related codes (QECC), which can be applied to noisy quantum channels and quantum memories with the purpose of preserving or protecting the information integrity. I first describe the basics of quantum repetition codes , as applicable to bit-flip and phase-flip quantum channels. Then I consider the 9-qubit Shor code , which has the capability of diagnosing and correcting any combination of bit-flip and phase-flip errors, up to one error of each type. Furthermore, it is shown that the Shor code is, in fact, capable of fully restoring qubit integrity under a continuum of bit or phase errors, a property that has no counterpart in the classical world of error-correction codes. But the exploration of QECC does not stop here! We shall discover the elegant Calderbank–Shor–Steane (CSS) codes, which have the capability of correcting any number of errors t , both bit-flip and phase-flip. As an application of the CSS code, I then describe the 7-qubit Hadamard–Steane code , which can correct up to one error on single qubits. A corresponding quantum circuit, based on an original generator-matrix example, is presented. Quantum repetition code In Chapter 11, we saw that the simplest form of error-correction code (ECC) is the repetition code , based on the principle of majority logic . The background assumption is that in a given message sequence, or bit string, the probability of a bit error is sufficiently small for the majority of bits to be correctly transmitted through the channel.
We show how entanglement-assisted codes can be constructed from arbitrary quantum codes by associating them with quantum codes for erasure channels. If a subset of physical qubits is correctable for an erasure error, then it naturally forms the receiver's share of a bipartite state that can be used for entanglement-assisted communications, both in the noiseless and noisy ebit error models. In the case of degenerate codes, we show that the receiver's share of the bipartite state can sometimes be compressed, at the cost of potentially reduced error-correction ability in the noisy ebit error model. We also give examples of permutation-invariant and XP-stabilizer entanglement-assisted codes, the first outside of the stabilizer and codeword-stabilized frameworks.
Quantum error correction (QEC) is an effective way to overcome quantum noise and de-coherence, meanwhile the fault tolerance of the encoding circuit, syndrome measurement circuit, and logical gate realization circuit must be ensured so as to achieve reliable quantum computing. Steane code is one of the most famous codes, proposed in 1996, however, the classical encoding circuit based on stabilizer implementation is not fault-tolerant. In this paper, we propose a method to design a fault-tolerant encoding circuit for Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) code based on stabilizer implementation and “flag” bits. We use the Steane code as an example to depict in detail the fault-tolerant encoding circuit design process including the logical operation implementation, the stabilizer implementation, and the “flag” qubits design. The simulation results show that assuming only one quantum gate will be wrong with a certain probability p, the classical encoding circuit will have logic errors proportional to p; our proposed circuit is fault-tolerant as with the help of the “flag” bits, all types of errors in the encoding process can be accurately and uniquely determined, the errors can be fixed. If all the gates will be wrong with a certain probability p, which is the actual situation, the proposed encoding circuit will also be wrong with a certain probability, but its error rate has been reduced greatly from p to p2 compared with the original circuit. This encoding circuit design process can be extended to other CSS codes to improve the correctness of the encoding circuit.