Error correction is of utmost necessity for large-scale quantum computing. Quantum error correcting codes can be degenerate, if more than one type of error can map the input state to the same error state. In this paper, we propose a 6-qubit degenerate CSS code. We show that our proposed code can correct a single bit flip error, but arbitrarily many phase flip errors occurring on the codeword. Furthermore, it follows from a bound on CSS codes that the proposed code is the minimal binary CSS code which can encode a single qubit of information. We also perform a comparative study of the gate count required for a fault tolerant decomposition of the error correction circuit for the proposed code, with that for the existing 9-qubit, 7-qubit and 5-qubit binary QEC codes. Our results show, on an average over the different technologies a savings of 98.14% in the gate count for the proposed code over that for the 5-qubit code. Significant improvement of around 50% in gate count is also obtained when compared to those for the 9-qubit and 7-qubit codes.
Error correction is of utmost necessity for large-scale quantum computing. Quantum error correcting codes can be degenerate, if more than one type of error can map the input state to the same error state. In this paper, we propose a 6-qubit degenerate CSS code. We show that our proposed code can correct a single bit flip error, but arbitrarily many phase flip errors occurring on the codeword. Furthermore, it follows from a bound on CSS codes that the proposed code is the minimal binary CSS code which can encode a single qubit of information. We also perform a comparative study of the gate count required for a fault tolerant decomposition of the error correction circuit for the proposed code, with that for the existing 9-qubit, 7-qubit and 5-qubit binary QEC codes. Our results show, on an average over the different technologies a savings of 98.14% in the gate count for the proposed code over that for the 5-qubit code. Significant improvement of around 50% in gate count is also obtained when compared to those for the 9-qubit and 7-qubit codes.
Quantum error correcting code (QECC) with encoding and decoding circuits having low gate count, is an important criterion for realizing quantum computing systems. CSS QECCs are known to have simple circuits. Shaw et al. showed that it is not possible to have a 6-qubit CSS type QECC without sharing entanglement between the encoder and the decoder. In this paper, we propose a 6-qutrit approximate QECC (AQECC) of CSS structure which can simultaneously correct phase errors in upto six qutrits, and one bit error in only four of the six qutrits, without sharing prior entanglement. Our AQECC corrects a single error with probability 0.75 for symmetric error model, and probability 0.9988 for asymmetric error model. It also maintains CSS structure without sharing prior entanglement. Furthermore, the quantum cost of a circuit for this AQECC is 55.72% less than that for the 9-qutrit exact QECC. Overall, low qutrit count, low cost circuit realization with low depth and the ability to correct multiple phase errors make our proposed AQECC a suitable candidate for real life quantum channels.
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.
Since quantum states are limited in their ease of manipulation, quantum computing has great advantages when used for computation. These interactions, even if infinitesimal, are the very reason why errors arise, be it bit-flip, phase-flip, or composite, thus diminishing the accuracy in computation. Quantum error correction (QEC) intervenes systematically to guard against the loss of coherence from quantum information. Amongst the various QEC protocols developed so far, Steane code [ [7], [1], [3]] is a very famous CSS stabilizer code that was derived from a classical Hamming code. It will encode a single logical qubit into seven physical qubits, which corrects all single-qubit errors by separating X and Z syndrome measurements. The Steane code enables the implementation of transversal Clifford gates, making it an ideal playground to study fault-tolerant quantum computation. Although surface codes remain the codes of choice for scaling implementations, the Steane code will forever remain one of the cornerstone codes due to its clear structure of error correction and ease in teaching.
Modularization promises to break down the design and implementation complexity of large scale quantum processors into smaller manageable subtasks. In this approach, quantum channels, realized for instance through physical rerouting of qubits or quantum teleportation, connect multiple modules. Each of those modules hosts a subset of qubits, e.g. multiple logical qubits, and provides quantum operations on them. In this work, we implement for the first time all logical operations required for modular fault-tolerant universal quantum computing with a non-Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) code, the perfect [[5,1,3]] code, on a trapped-ion quantum computer. This code is the smallest quantum error-correcting (QEC) code capable of correcting any single-qubit error, making it a compact alternative to larger CSS codes. We demonstrate logical state teleportation and a full suite of fault-tolerant operations required for universal logical control, including logical state preparation, QEC with real-time feedback, logical measurements, magic-state preparation, logical entangling operations, and magic-state injection. Moreover, we characterize the logical spectator error picked up by idling logical qubits during quantum operations on distinct qubit registers and demonstrate a logical Pauli quantum process tomography that minimizes required sampling resources for logical tomography.
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.
The realization of quantum error correction protocols whose logical error rates are suppressed far below physical error rates relies on an intricate combination: the error-correcting code's efficiency, the syndrome extraction circuit's fault tolerance and overhead, the decoder's quality, and the device's constraints, such as physical qubit count and connectivity. This work makes two contributions towards error-corrected quantum devices. First, we introduce mirror codes, a simple yet flexible construction of LDPC stabilizer codes parameterized by a group G and two subsets of G whose total size bounds the check weight. These codes contain all abelian two-block group algebra codes, such as bivariate bicycle (BB) codes. At the same time, they are manifestly not CSS in general, thus deviating substantially from most prior constructions. Fixing a check weight of 6, we find [[60,4,10]],[[36,6,6]],[[48,8,6]], and [[85,8,9]] codes, all of which are not CSS; we also find several weight-7 codes with kd>n.
Next, we construct syndrome extraction circuits that trade overhead for provable fault tolerance. These circuits use 1-2, 3, and 6 ancillae per check, and respectively are partially fault-tolerant (FT), provably FT on weight-6 CSS codes, and provably FT on \emph{all} weight-6 stabilizer codes. Using our constructions, we perform end-to-end quantum memory experiments on several representative mirror codes under circuit-level noise. We achieve an error pseudothreshold on the order of 0.2%, approximately matching that of the [[144,12,12]] BB code under the same model. These findings position mirror codes as a versatile candidate for fault-tolerant quantum memory, especially on smaller-scale devices in the near term.