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arXiv:2004.00541 · Physical Review A

Enhanced noise resilience of the surface–Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill code via designed bias

Lisa Hänggli, Margret Heinze, Robert König

Published Nov 10, 2020• 41 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the code obtained by concatenating the standard single-mode Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code with the surface code. We show that the noise tolerance of this surface--GKP code with respect to (Gaussian) displacement errors improves when a single-mode squeezing unitary is applied to each mode, assuming that the identification of quadratures with logical Pauli operators is suitably modified. We observe noise-tolerance thresholds of up to $\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}0.58$ shift-error standard deviation when the surface code is decoded without using GKP syndrome information. In contrast, prior results by K. Fukui, A. Tomita, A. Okamoto, and K. Fujii, High-Threshold Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computation with Analog Quantum Error Correction, Phys. Rev. X 8, 021054 (2018) and C. Vuillot, H. Asasi, Y. Wang, L. P. Pryadko, and B. M. Terhal, Quantum error correction with the toric Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill code, Phys. Rev. A 99, 032344 (2019) report a threshold between $\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}0.54$ and $\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}0.55$ for the standard (toric, respectively) surface--GKP code. The modified surface--GKP code effectively renders the mode-level physical noise asymmetric, biasing the logical-level noise on the GKP qubits. The code can thus benefit from the resilience of the surface code against biased noise. We use the approximate maximum likelihood decoding algorithm of S. Bravyi, M. Suchara, and A. Vargo, Efficient algorithms for maximum likelihood decoding in the surface code, Phys. Rev. A 90, 032326 (2014) to obtain our threshold estimates. Throughout, we consider an idealized scenario where measurements are noiseless and GKP states are ideal. Our paper demonstrates that Gaussian encodings of individual modes can enhance concatenated codes.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.102.052408

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Fault-tolerant quantum error correction requires repeated syndrome extraction to address errors induced by the syndrome-extraction circuit itself. However, repeated syndrome extraction incurs significant overhead in terms of gate count and ancilla consumption (e.g., Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states). Moreover, noisy syndrome extraction can itself inject additional errors into the data qubits. To address these issues, we propose a concrete adaptive skipping scheme for the surface-GKP code, a representative GKP-concatenated architecture, that uses analog information naturally generated during inner GKP correction. At each round, the scheme selects one of four actions: measuring both Z-type and X-type surface-code stabilizers, measuring only one type, or skipping both types and reusing previous syndromes. The decision is based on a reliability comparison between reusing the previous syndrome value and performing a new noisy syndrome extraction. Using circuit-level simulations, we show that the adaptive skipping scheme can reduce the number of surface-code stabilizer measurements while maintaining logical error rates comparable to or lower than those of the full-measurement baseline. The improvement is most pronounced when gate and measurement noise are larger than idle noise, so that avoiding unnecessary syndrome extraction reduces the noise injected into the code. These results indicate that analog information from inner GKP correction can be used not only to improve decoding but also to reduce the measurement overhead of outer-code syndrome extraction.

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We study the code obtained by concatenating the standard single-mode Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code with the surface code. We show that the noise tolerance of this surface--GKP code with respect to (Gaussian) displacement errors improves when a single-mode squeezing unitary is applied to each mode, assuming that the identification of quadratures with logical Pauli operators is suitably modified. We observe noise-tolerance thresholds of up to \ensuremathσ\ensuremath≈0.58\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}0.58\ensuremathσ\ensuremath≈0.58 shift-error standard deviation when the surface code is decoded without using GKP syndrome information. In contrast, prior results by K. Fukui, A. Tomita, A. Okamoto, and K. Fujii, High-Threshold Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computation with Analog Quantum Error Correction, Phys. Rev. X 8, 021054 (2018) and C. Vuillot, H. Asasi, Y. Wang, L. P. Pryadko, and B. M. Terhal, Quantum error correction with the toric Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill code, Phys. Rev. A 99, 032344 (2019) report a threshold between \ensuremathσ\ensuremath≈0.54\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}0.54\ensuremathσ\ensuremath≈0.54 and \ensuremathσ\ensuremath≈0.55\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}0.55\ensuremathσ\ensuremath≈0.55 for the standard (toric, respectively) surface--GKP code. The modified surface--GKP code effectively renders the mode-level physical noise asymmetric, biasing the logical-level noise on the GKP qubits. The code can thus benefit from the resilience of the surface code against biased noise. We use the approximate maximum likelihood decoding algorithm of S. Bravyi, M. Suchara, and A. Vargo, Efficient algorithms for maximum likelihood decoding in the surface code, Phys. Rev. A 90, 032326 (2014) to obtain our threshold estimates. Throughout, we consider an idealized scenario where measurements are noiseless and GKP states are ideal. Our paper demonstrates that Gaussian encodings of individual modes can enhance concatenated codes.
Bosonic codes provide an alternative option for quantum error correction. An important category of bosonic codes called the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code has aroused much interest recently. Theoretically, the error correction ability of the GKP code is limited since it can only correct small shift errors in position and momentum quadratures. A natural approach to promote the GKP error correction for large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computation is concatenating encoded GKP states with a stabilizer code. The performance of the XZZX surface-GKP code, i.e., the single-mode GKP code concatenated with the XZZX surface code is investigated in this paper under two different noise models. Firstly, in the code-capacity noise model, the asymmetric rectangular GKP code with parameter $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ is introduced. Using the minimum weight perfect matching decoder combined with the continuous-variable GKP information, the optimal threshold of the XZZX-surface GKP code reaches $\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}0.67$ when $\ensuremath{\lambda}=2.1$, compared with the threshold $\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}0.60$ of the standard surface-GKP code. Secondly, we analyze the shift errors of two-qubit gates in the actual implementation and build the full circuit-level noise model. By setting the appropriate bias parameters, the logical error rate is reduced by several times in some cases. These results indicate the XZZX surface-GKP codes are more suitable for asymmetric concatenation under the general noise models. We also estimate the overhead of the XZZX-surface GKP code which uses about 291 GKP states with the noise parameter 18.5 dB ($\ensuremath{\kappa}/g\ensuremath{\approx}0.71%$) to encode a logical qubit with the error rate $2.53\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}7}$, compared with the qubit-based surface code using 3041 qubits to achieve almost the same logical error rate.
Fault-tolerant quantum error correction is essential for implementing quantum algorithms of significant practical importance.In this work, we propose a highly effective use of the surface Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code, i.e., the surface code consisting of bosonic GKP qubits instead of bare two-level qubits.In our proposal, we use error-corrected two-qubit gates between GKP qubits and introduce a maximum-likelihood decoding strategy for correcting shift errors in the two-GKP-qubit gates.Our proposed decoding reduces the total CNOT failure rate of the GKP qubits, e.g., from 0.87% to 0.36% at a GKP squeezing of 12 dB, compared to the case where the simple closest-integer decoding is used.Then, by concatenating the GKP code with the surface code, we find that the threshold GKP squeezing is given by 9.9 dB under the the assumption that finite squeezing of the GKP states is the dominant noise source.More importantly, we show that a low logical failure rate p L < 10 -7 can be achieved with moderate hardware requirements, e.g., 291 modes and 97 qubits at a GKP squeezing of 12 dB as opposed to 1457 bare qubits for the standard rotated surface code at an equivalent noise level (i.e., p = 0.36%).Such a low failure rate of our surface-GKP code is possible through the use of space-time correlated edges in the matching graphs of the surface-code decoder.Further, all edge weights in the matching graphs are computed dynamically based on analog information from the GKP error correction using the full history of all syndrome measurement rounds.We also show that a highly squeezed GKP state of GKP squeezing 12 dB can be experimentally realized by using a dissipative stabilization method, namely, the big-small-big method, with fairly conservative experimental parameters.Lastly, we introduce a three-level ancilla scheme to mitigate ancilla decay errors during a GKP state preparation.
We examine the performance of the single-mode Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code and its concatenation with the toric code for a noise model of Gaussian shifts, or displacement errors. We show how one can optimize the tracking of errors in repeated noisy error correction for the GKP code. We do this by examining the maximum-likelihood problem for this setting and its mapping onto a 1D Euclidean path-integral modeling a particle in a random cosine potential. We demonstrate the efficiency of a minimum-energy decoding strategy as a proxy for the path integral evaluation. In the second part of this paper, we analyze and numerically assess the concatenation of the GKP code with the toric code. When toric code measurements and GKP error correction measurements are perfect, we find that by using GKP error information the toric code threshold improves from 1010%10 to 1414%14. When only the GKP error correction measurements are perfect we observe a threshold at 66%6. In the more realistic setting when all error information is noisy, we show how to represent the maximum likelihood decoding problem for the toric-GKP code as a 3D compact QED model in the presence of a quenched random gauge field, an extension of the random-plaquette gauge model for the toric code. We present a decoder for this problem which shows the existence of a noise threshold at shift-error standard deviation ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{0}\ensuremath{\approx}0.243$ for toric code measurements, data errors and GKP ancilla errors. If the errors only come from having imperfect GKP states, then this corresponds to states with just four photons or more. Our last result is a no-go result for linear oscillator codes, encoding oscillators into oscillators. For the Gaussian displacement error model, we prove that encoding corresponds to squeezing the shift errors. This shows that linear oscillator codes are useless for quantum information protection against Gaussian shift errors.
In order to solve practical problems on a quantum computer, it is necessary to use fault-tolerant quantum error correction schemes to overcome noise: the errors arising from imperfections in physical components. The Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code aims at achieving this in a hardware efficient manner by encoding finite-dimensional logical subspaces in the Hilbert space of one or more continuous variable modes. In near term implementations, however, it is not feasible to eliminate errors entirely, so it is natural to also employ alternative error mitigation techniques together with error correction. In this work, we study a quantum error mitigation method known as probabilistic error cancellation in the context of the GKP code. We compare Steane-type and teleportation-based GKP error correction, and calculate the sampling overheads associated with the technique for square and hexagonal GKP codes. We employ the stabilizer subsystem decomposition for GKP codes to obtain an effective logical channel for noisy operations that is used to express the ideal one of a target logical unitary. We consider noise from finite squeezing on the data and the two ancilla modes, needed for error correction, and examine the relationship between the sampling overhead and the noise for different decoding methods. Our results are calculated for single- and two-qubit GKP Clifford gates and one round of error correction, and show the nontrivial combination of error correction and mitigation in continuous variable codes.
Continuous-variable quantum computing architectures based upon the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) encoding have emerged as a promising candidate because one can achieve fault tolerance with a probabilistic supply of GKP states and Gaussian operations. Furthermore, by generalizing to rectangular-lattice GKP states, a bias can be introduced and exploited through concatenation with qubit codes that show improved performance under biasing. However, these codes (such as the XZZX surface code) still require weight-four stabilizer measurements and have complex decoding requirements to overcome. In this work, we study the code-capacity behavior of a rectangular-lattice GKP encoding concatenated with a repetition code under an isotropic Gaussian displacement channel. We find a numerical threshold of $\ensuremath{\sigma}=0.599$ for the noise's standard deviation, which outperforms the biased GKP planar surface code with a trade-off of increased biasing at the GKP level. This is all achieved with only weight-two stabilizer operators and simple decoding at the qubit level. Furthermore, with moderate levels of bias (aspect ratio $\ensuremath{\le}2.4$) and nine or fewer data modes, significant reductions in logical error rates can still be achieved for $\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\le}0.3$, opening the possibility of using biased GKP repetition codes as a simple low-level qubit encoding for further concatenation.
Fault-tolerant quantum error correction requires repeated syndrome extraction to address errors induced by the syndrome-extraction circuit itself. However, repeated syndrome extraction incurs significant overhead in terms of gate count and ancilla consumption (e.g., Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states). Moreover, noisy syndrome extraction can itself inject additional errors into the data qubits. To address these issues, we propose a concrete adaptive skipping scheme for the surface-GKP code, a representative GKP-concatenated architecture, that uses analog information naturally generated during inner GKP correction. At each round, the scheme selects one of four actions: measuring both Z-type and X-type surface-code stabilizers, measuring only one type, or skipping both types and reusing previous syndromes. The decision is based on a reliability comparison between reusing the previous syndrome value and performing a new noisy syndrome extraction. Using circuit-level simulations, we show that the adaptive skipping scheme can reduce the number of surface-code stabilizer measurements while maintaining logical error rates comparable to or lower than those of the full-measurement baseline. The improvement is most pronounced when gate and measurement noise are larger than idle noise, so that avoiding unnecessary syndrome extraction reduces the noise injected into the code. These results indicate that analog information from inner GKP correction can be used not only to improve decoding but also to reduce the measurement overhead of outer-code syndrome extraction.