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arXiv:0907.1635 · New Journal of Physics

Implementation of fault-tolerant quantum logic gates via optimal control

Ramil Nigmatullin, S. G. Schirmer

Published Oct 30, 2009• 42 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The implementation of fault-tolerant quantum gates on encoded logic qubits is considered. It is shown that transversal implementation of logic gates based on simple geometric control ideas is problematic for realistic physical systems suffering from imperfections such as qubit inhomogeneity or uncontrollable interactions between qubits. However, this problem can be overcome by formulating the task as an optimal control problem and designing efficient algorithms to solve it. In particular, we can find solutions that implement all of the elementary logic gates in a fixed amount of time with limited control resources for the five-qubit stabilizer code. Most importantly, logic gates that are extremely difficult to implement using conventional techniques even for ideal systems, such as the T -gate for the five-qubit stabilizer code, do not appear to pose a problem for optimal control.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/11/10/105032

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The implementation of fault-tolerant quantum gates on encoded logic qubits is considered. It is shown that transversal implementation of logic gates based on simple geometric control ideas is problematic for realistic physical systems suffering from imperfections such as qubit inhomogeneity or uncontrollable interactions between qubits. However, this problem can be overcome by formulating the task as an optimal control problem and designing efficient algorithms to solve it. In particular, we can find solutions that implement all of the elementary logic gates in a fixed amount of time with limited control resources for the five-qubit stabilizer code. Most importantly, logic gates that are extremely difficult to implement using conventional techniques even for ideal systems, such as the T -gate for the five-qubit stabilizer code, do not appear to pose a problem for optimal control.
The quantum logic gates used in the design of a quantum computer should be both universal, meaning arbitrary quantum computations can be performed, and fault-tolerant, meaning the gates keep errors from cascading out of control. A number of no-go theorems constrain the ways in which a set of fault-tolerant logic gates can be universal. These theorems are very restrictive, and conventional wisdom holds that a universal fault-tolerant logic gate set cannot be implemented natively, requiring us to use costly distillation procedures for quantum computation. Here, we present a general framework for universal fault-tolerant logic with stabilizer codes, together with a no-go theorem that reveals the very broad conditions constraining such gate sets. Our theorem applies to a wide range of stabilizer code families, including concatenated codes and conventional topological stabilizer codes such as the surface code. The broad applicability of our no-go theorem provides a new perspective on how the constraints on universal fault-tolerant gate sets can be overcome. In particular, we show how nonunitary implementations of logic gates provide a general approach to circumvent the no-go theorem, and we present a rich landscape of constructions for logic gate sets that are both universal and fault-tolerant. That is, rather than restricting what is possible, our no-go theorem provides a signpost to guide us to new, efficient architectures for fault-tolerant quantum computing.
We present a set of efficiently implementable logical multi-qubit gates in concatenated quantum error correction codes using parity qubits. In particular, we show how fault-tolerant high-weight rotation gates of arbitrary angle can be implemented on single physical qubits of a classical stabilizer code, or on localized regions of full quantum error correction codes. Similarly, we show how transversal CNOT gates can implement logical parity-controlled-NOT operations between arbitrarily many logical qubits. Both operation types can be implemented and in many cases parallelized without the use of lattice surgery or the need for complicated routing operations.
Encoding of quantum information and carrying out computation on encoded state is an essential requirement for improving the reliability of a quantum computer. Resource limitation in today's noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) processors further restricts carrying out fault-tolerant quantum gate operations on such systems. Recent experiments conducted on physical qubits of superconducting transmon type and trapped atomic ions using the fault-tolerant scheme based on [[4, 2, 2]] code have shown a systematic improvement in the fidelity of all logical quantum gate operations except the logical controlled-NOT (CNOT) operation that requires 3 physical SWAP operations for fault-tolerant realization. In this present work we propose an optimal realization of logical CNOT operations on a single or two separate [[4, 2, 2]] code-words using 4 physical CNOT operations and an additional qubit. We further introduce logical two-qubit positive and negative controlled-phase operations with varying rotation angle, and also propose the fault-tolerant realization of logical 2-controlled-phase (C2Z) and 2-controlled-NOT (C2NOT) operations that are required for universal computation using [[4, 2, 2]] encoding. The implementation requires less number of encoded operations and one additional qubit. Through experiments conducted on the 15-qubit IBM Quantum Experience processor and QASM simulator the fidelity and validity of all these proposed gate operations have been verified.
It is an oft cited fact that no quantum code can support a set of fault-tolerant logical gates that is both universal and transversal. This no-go theorem is generally responsible for the interest in alternative universality constructions including magic state distillation. Widely overlooked, however, is the possibility of non-transversal, yet still fault-tolerant, gates that work directly on small quantum codes. Here we demonstrate precisely the existence of such gates. In particular, we show how the limits of non-transversality can be overcome by performing rounds of intermediate error-correction to create logical gates on stabilizer codes that use no ancillas other than those required for syndrome measurement. Moreover, the logical gates we construct, the most prominent examples being Toffoli and controlled-controlled-Z, often complete universal gate sets on their codes. We detail such universal constructions for the smallest quantum codes, the 5-qubit and 7-qubit codes, and then proceed to generalize the approach. One remarkable result of this generalization is that any nondegenerate stabilizer code with a complete set of fault-tolerant single-qubit Clifford gates has a universal set of fault-tolerant gates. Another is the interaction of logical qubits across different stabilizer codes, which, for instance, implies a broadly applicable method of code switching.
Quantum computers promise to solve problems that are intractable for classical computers, but qubits are vulnerable to many sources of error, limiting the depth of the circuits that can be reliably executed on today's quantum hardware. Quantum error correction has been proposed as a solution to this problem, whereby quantum information is protected by encoding it into a quantum error-correcting code. But protecting quantum information is not enough, we must also process the information using logic gates that are robust to faults that occur during their execution. One method for processing information fault-tolerantly is to use quantum error-correcting codes that have logical gates with a tensor product structure (transversal gates), making them naturally fault-tolerant. Here, we test the performance of a code with such transversal gates, the [[8,3,2]] color code, using trapped-ion and superconducting hardware. We observe improved performance (compared to no encoding) for encoded circuits implementing non-Clifford gates, a class of gates that are essential for achieving universal quantum computing. In particular, we find improved performance for an encoded circuit implementing the controlled-controlled-ZZZ gate, a key gate in Shor's algorithm. Our results illustrate the potential of using codes with transversal gates to implement nontrivial algorithms on near-term quantum hardware.
Universal quantum computers require fault-tolerant logical qudits, as qudits naturally align with the simulation of multi-level physical systems. Here, we present a general framework and working examples for encoding fault-tolerant logical qudits in finite-dimensional spin systems. We construct distance-333, distance-555 codewords, and general 2t+12t+12t+1-distance codes that can be implemented using a single physical qudit or a small number of coupled qudits for higher distances, while requiring a Hilbert space dimension significantly smaller than conventional constructions based on multiple logical qubits. Logical operations and error correction protocols can be implemented with polynomial scaling in the number of elementary operations. We further discuss schematic designs for physical implementation and required single-gate fidelities, which are compatible with current spin qudit platforms. This strategy provides a resource-efficient path toward realizing fault-tolerant logical qudits in finite multi-level physical systems.