In this paper we define homological stabilizer codes which encompass codes such as Kitaev's toric code and the topological color codes. These codes are defined solely by the graphs they reside on. This feature allows us to use properties of topological graph theory to determine the graphs which are suitable as homological stabilizer codes. We then show that all toric codes are equivalent to homological stabilizer codes on 4-valent graphs. We show that the topological color codes and toric codes correspond to two distinct classes of graphs. We define the notion of label set equivalencies and show that under a small set of constraints the only homological stabilizer codes without local logical operators are equivalent to Kitaev's toric code or to the topological color codes.
In this paper we define homological stabilizer codes which encompass codes such as Kitaev's toric code and the topological color codes. These codes are defined solely by the graphs they reside on. This feature allows us to use properties of topological graph theory to determine the graphs which are suitable as homological stabilizer codes. We then show that all toric codes are equivalent to homological stabilizer codes on 4-valent graphs. We show that the topological color codes and toric codes correspond to two distinct classes of graphs. We define the notion of label set equivalencies and show that under a small set of constraints the only homological stabilizer codes without local logical operators are equivalent to Kitaev's toric code or to the topological color codes.
Topological code is a stabilizer quantum error correcting code whose generators are local but logical operators are topologically nontrivial and nonlocal. It offers interesting features such as the homological deformations of string operators and anyonic excitations on it. Topological codes are also closely related to the ``topological order,'' which has been an important concept in condensed-matter physics. In this paper, we consider continuous-variable versions of topological codes, including the toric code by Kitaev [A. Y. Kitaev, Ann. Phys. 303, 2 (2003)] with a single type of stabilizer on the checkerboard lattice, and the color code by Bombin and Martin-Delgado [H. Bombin and M. A. Martin-Delgado, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 180501 (2006)]. We show that it is possible to consider continuous-variable analog of these topological codes.
In a recent work, Bombin, Duclos-Cianci, and Poulin showed that every local translationally invariant 2D topological stabilizer code is locally equivalent to a finite number of copies of Kitaev’s toric code. In this paper, we focus on color codes and relax the constraint on translation invariance. We show that any color code can be mapped to exactly two copies of a related surface code. The surface code in our map is induced by the color code and easily derived from the color code. Furthermore, our map does not require any ancilla qubits for the surface codes. We also indicate the various degrees of freedom in constructing the map and the consequent variations.
In recent years, there have been many studies on local stabilizer codes. Under the assumption of translation and scale invariance Yoshida classified such codes. His result implies that translation invariant 2D color codes are equivalent to copies of toric codes. Independently, Bombin, Duclos-Cianci, and Poulin showed that a local translation invariant 2D topological stabilizer code is locally equivalent to a finite number of copies of Kitaev's toric code. In this paper we focus on 2D topological color codes and relax the assumption of translation invariance. Using a linear algebraic framework we show that any 2D color code (without boundaries) is locally equivalent to two copies of a related surface code. This surface code is induced by color code. We study the application of this equivalence to the decoding of 2D color codes over the bit flip channel as well as the quantum erasure channel. We report the performance of the color code on the square octagonal lattice over the quantum erasure channel. Further, we provide explicit circuits that perform the transformation between 2D color codes and surface codes. Our circuits do not require any additional ancilla qubits.
Locality-preserving logical operators in topological codes are naturally fault tolerant, since they preserve the correctability of local errors. Using a correspondence between such operators and gapped domain walls, we describe a procedure for finding all locality-preserving logical operators admitted by a large and important class of topological stabilizer codes. In particular, we focus on those equivalent to a stack of a finite number of surface codes of any spatial dimension, where our procedure fully specifies the group of locality-preserving logical operators. We also present examples of how our procedure applies to codes with different boundary conditions, including color codes and toric codes, as well as more general codes such as Abelian quantum double models and codes with fermionic excitations in more than two dimensions.
In a recent work, Bombin, Duclos-Cianci, and Poulin showed that every local translationally invariant 2D topological stabilizer code is locally equivalent to a finite number of copies of Kitaev's toric code. For 2D color codes, Delfosse relaxed the constraint on translation invariance and mapped a 2D color code onto three surface codes. In this paper, we propose an alternate map based on linear algebra. We show that any 2D color code can be mapped onto exactly two copies of a related surface code. The surface code in our map is induced by the color code and easily derived from the color code. Furthermore, our map does not require any ancilla qubits for the surface codes.
The entanglement properties of a class of topological stabilizer states, the so-called topological color codes defined on a two-dimensional lattice or 2-colex, are calculated. The topological entropy is used to measure the entanglement of different bipartitions of the 2-colex. The dependency of the ground-state degeneracy on the genus of the surface shows that the color code can support a topological order, and the contribution of the color in its structure makes it interesting to compare with Kitaev's toric code. While a qubit is maximally entangled with the rest of the system, two qubits are no longer entangled showing that the color code is genuinely multipartite entangled. For a convex region, it is found that entanglement entropy depends only on the degrees of freedom living on the boundary of two subsystems. The boundary scaling of entropy is supplemented with a topological subleading term, which for a color code defined on a compact surface, is twice over the toric code. From the entanglement entropy we construct a set of bipartitions in which the diverging term arising from the boundary term is washed out, and the remaining nonvanishing term will have a topological nature. Besides the color code on the compact surface, we also analyze the entanglement properties of a version of color code with a border, i.e., triangular color code.