A physical realization of self-correcting quantum code would be profoundly useful for constructing a quantum computer. In this theoretical work, we provide a partial solution to major challenges preventing self-correcting quantum code from being engineered in realistic devices. We consider a variant of Kitaev's toric code coupled to propagating bosons, which induce a ranged interaction between anyonic defects. By coupling the primary quantum system to an engineered dissipation source through resonant energy transfer, we demonstrate a ``rate barrier'' which leads to a potentially enormous increase in the system's quantum-state lifetime through purely passive quantum error correction, even when coupled to an infinite-temperature bath. While our mechanism is not scalable to infinitely large systems, the maximum effective size can be very large, and it is fully compatible with active error-correction schemes. Our model uses only on-site and nearest-neighbor interactions and could be implemented in superconducting qubits. We sketch one such implementation at the end of this work.
A physical realization of self-correcting quantum code would be profoundly useful for constructing a quantum computer. In this theoretical work, we provide a partial solution to major challenges preventing self-correcting quantum code from being engineered in realistic devices. We consider a variant of Kitaev's toric code coupled to propagating bosons, which induce a ranged interaction between anyonic defects. By coupling the primary quantum system to an engineered dissipation source through resonant energy transfer, we demonstrate a ``rate barrier'' which leads to a potentially enormous increase in the system's quantum-state lifetime through purely passive quantum error correction, even when coupled to an infinite-temperature bath. While our mechanism is not scalable to infinitely large systems, the maximum effective size can be very large, and it is fully compatible with active error-correction schemes. Our model uses only on-site and nearest-neighbor interactions and could be implemented in superconducting qubits. We sketch one such implementation at the end of this work.
Superconducting qubits are among the most promising platforms for building a quantum computer. However, individual qubit coherence times are not far past the scalability threshold for quantum error correction, meaning that millions of physical devices would be required to construct a useful quantum computer. Consequently, further increases in coherence time are very desirable. In this Letter, we blueprint a simple circuit consisting of two transmon qubits and two additional lossy qubits or resonators, which is passively protected against all single-qubit quantum error channels through a combination of continuous driving and engineered dissipation. Photon losses are rapidly corrected through two-photon drive fields implemented with driven superconducting quantum interference device couplings, and dephasing from random potential fluctuations is heavily suppressed by the drive fields used to implement the multiqubit Hamiltonian. Comparing our theoretical model to published noise estimates from recent experiments on flux and transmon qubits, we find that logical state coherence could be improved by a factor of 40 or more compared to the individual qubit T_{1} and T_{2} using this technique. We thus demonstrate that there is substantial headroom for improving the coherence of modern superconducting qubits with a fairly modest increase in device complexity.
Autonomous quantum memories are a way to passively protect quantum information using engineered dissipation that creates an “always-on'' decoder. We analyze Markovian autonomous decoders that can be implemented with a wide range of qubit and bosonic error-correcting codes, and derive several upper bounds and a lower bound on the logical error rate in terms of correction and noise rates. These bounds suggest that, in general, there is always a correction rate, possibly size-dependent, above which autonomous memories exhibit arbitrarily long coherence times. For any given autonomous memory, size dependence of this correction rate is difficult to rule out: we point to common scenarios where autonomous decoders that stochastically implement active error correction must operate at rates that grow with code size. For codes with a threshold, we show that it is possible to achieve faster-than-polynomial decay of the logical error rate with code size by using superlogarithmic scaling of the correction rate. We illustrate our results with several examples. One example is an exactly solvable global dissipative toric code model that can achieve an effective logical error rate that decreases exponentially with the linear lattice size, provided that the recovery rate grows proportionally with the linear lattice size.
Noise and errors are inevitable parts of any practical implementation of a quantum computer. As a result, large-scale quantum computation will require ways to detect and correct errors in quantum information. Here we present such a quantum error-correcting scheme for correcting the dominant phase and decay errors in superconducting qubit architectures using a hybrid approach combining autonomous correction based on engineered dissipation with traditional measurement-based quantum error correction. Using numerical simulations with realistic device parameters for superconducting circuits, we show that this scheme can achieve a five- to tenfold increase in storage time while using only six qubits for the encoding and two ancillary qubits for the operation of the autonomous correction, providing a potentially large reduction of qubit overhead compared to typical measurement-based error-correction schemes. Furthermore, the scheme relies on standard interactions and qubit driving available in most major quantum computing platforms, making it implementable in a wide range of architectures.
Quantum error correction (QEC) normally requires active maintenance using measurements, classical processing and externally controlled correction schedules. Passive QEC, by contrast, was previously established only in unphysical spatial dimensions. Here, we give an explicit scheme for autonomous quantum error correction and computation in two dimensions, formulated as a dissipative quantum cellular automaton with a fixed, local and translation-invariant update rule. The construction uses hierarchical, self-simulating control elements based on ideas from the seminal classical results of Gács (1986, 1989) together with a measurement-free concatenated quantum code. We prove the existence of a nonzero noise threshold under a local noise model. Below this threshold, logical errors on encoded initial states are suppressed exponentially with increasing system size and the memory lifetime diverges in the thermodynamic limit. As an extension, we outline how this mechanism can also be implemented in continuous time by a time-independent, translation-invariant local Lindbladian. Quantum circuits can moreover be encoded in the automaton's initial state and executed fault-tolerantly with polylogarithmic overhead under the same circuit-independent rule. Our scheme thus realizes a self-correcting quantum computer capable of universal computation.
One of the largest obstacles to building a quantum computer is gate error, where the physical evolution of the state of a qubit or group of qubits during a gate operation does not match the intended unitary transformation. Gate error stems from a combination of control errors and random single qubit errors from interaction with the environment. While great strides have been made in mitigating control errors, intrinsic qubit error remains a serious problem that limits gate fidelity in modern qubit architectures. Simultaneously, recent developments of small error-corrected logical qubit devices promise significant increases in logical state lifetime, but translating those improvements into increases in gate fidelity is a complex challenge. In this Letter, we construct protocols for gates on and between small logical qubit devices which inherit the parent device's tolerance to single qubit errors which occur at any time before or during the gate. We consider two such devices, a passive implementation of the three-qubit bit flip code, and the author's own [E. Kapit, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 150501 (2016)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.116.150501] very small logical qubit (VSLQ) design, and propose error-tolerant gate sets for both. The effective logical gate error rate in these models displays superlinear error reduction with linear increases in single qubit lifetime, proving that passive error correction is capable of increasing gate fidelity. Using a standard phenomenological noise model for superconducting qubits, we demonstrate a realistic, universal one- and two-qubit gate set for the VSLQ, with error rates an order of magnitude lower than those for same-duration operations on single qubits or pairs of qubits. These developments further suggest that incorporating small logical qubits into a measurement based code could substantially improve code performance.
Storing quantum information for long times without disruptions is a major requirement for most quantum information technologies. A very appealing approach is to use self-correcting Hamiltonians, that is tailoring local interactions among the qubits such that when the system is weakly coupled to a cold bath the thermalization process takes a long time. Here we propose an alternative but more powerful approach in which the coupling to a bath is engineered, so that dissipation protects the encoded qubit against more general kinds of errors. We show that the method can be implemented locally in four-dimensional lattice geometries by means of a toric code and propose a simple two-dimensional setup for proof-of-principle experiments.