Quantum information science strives to leverage the quantum-mechanical nature of our universe in order to achieve large improvements in certain information processing tasks. In deep-space optical communications, current receivers for the pure-state classical-quantum channel first measure each qubit channel output and then classically post-process the measurements. This approach is sub-optimal. In this dissertation we investigate a recently proposed quantum algorithm for this task, which is inspired by classical belief-propagation algorithms, and analyze its performance on a simple $5$-bit code. We show that the algorithm is optimal for each bit and it appears to achieve optimal performance when deciding the full transmitted message. We also provide explicit circuits for the algorithm in terms of standard gates. This suggests a near-term quantum communication advantage over the aforementioned sub-optimal scheme. Quantum error correction is vital to building a universal fault-tolerant quantum computer. We propose an efficient algorithm that can translate a given logical Clifford operation on a stabilizer code into all (equivalence classes of) physical Clifford circuits that realize that operation. In order to achieve universality, one also needs to implement at least one non-Clifford logical operation. So, we develop a mathematical framework for a large subset of diagonal operations in the Clifford hierarchy, which we call Quadratic Form Diagonal (QFD) gates. Then we use the QFD formalism to characterize all stabilizer codes whose code spaces are preserved under the transversal action of the non-Clifford $T$ gates on the physical qubits. We also discuss a few purely-classical coding problems motivated by transversal $T$ gates. A conscious effort has been made to keep this dissertation self-contained, by including necessary background material on quantum information and computation.
Quantum information science strives to leverage the quantum-mechanical nature of our universe in order to achieve large improvements in certain information processing tasks. In deep-space optical communications, current receivers for the pure-state classical-quantum channel first measure each qubit channel output and then classically post-process the measurements. This approach is sub-optimal. In this dissertation we investigate a recently proposed quantum algorithm for this task, which is inspired by classical belief-propagation algorithms, and analyze its performance on a simple 5-bit code. We show that the algorithm is optimal for each bit and it appears to achieve optimal performance when deciding the full transmitted message. We also provide explicit circuits for the algorithm in terms of standard gates. This suggests a near-term quantum communication advantage over the aforementioned sub-optimal scheme. Quantum error correction is vital to building a universal fault-tolerant quantum computer. We propose an efficient algorithm that can translate a given logical Clifford operation on a stabilizer code into all (equivalence classes of) physical Clifford circuits that realize that operation. In order to achieve universality, one also needs to implement at least one non-Clifford logical operation. So, we develop a mathematical framework for a large subset of diagonal operations in the Clifford hierarchy, which we call Quadratic Form Diagonal (QFD) gates. Then we use the QFD formalism to characterize all stabilizer codes whose code spaces are preserved under the transversal action of the non-Clifford T gates on the physical qubits. We also discuss a few purely-classical coding problems motivated by transversal T gates. A conscious effort has been made to keep this dissertation self-contained, by including necessary background material on quantum information and computation.
Quantum technologies are maturing by the day and their near-term applications are now of great interest. Deep-space optical communication involves transmission over the pure-state classical-quantum channel. For optimal detection, a joint measurement on all output qubits is required in general. Since this is hard to realize, current (sub-optimal) schemes perform symbol-by-symbol detection followed by classical post-processing. In this paper we focus on a recently proposed belief propagation algorithm by Renes that passes qubit messages on the factor graph of a classical error-correcting code. More importantly, it only involves single-qubit Pauli measurements during the process. For an example 5-bit code, we analyze the involved density matrices and calculate the error probabilities on this channel. Then we numerically compute the optimal joint detection limit using the Yuen-Kennedy-Lax conditions and demonstrate that the calculated error probabilities for this algorithm appear to achieve this limit. This represents a first step towards achieveing quantum communication advantage. We verify our analysis using Monte-Carlo simulations in practice.
Quantum computing exists at the intersection of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and engineering; the main goal of quantum computing is the creation of devices and algorithms which use the properties of quantum mechanics to store, manipulate and measure information. There exist many families of algorithms, which, using non-classical logical operations, can outperform traditional, classical algorithms in terms of memory and processing requirements. In addition, quantum computing devices are fundamentally smaller than classical processors and memory elements; since the physical models governing their performance are applicable on all scales, as opposed to classical logic elements, whose underlying principles rely on the macroscopic nature of the device in question. \n \nQuantum algorithms, for the most part, are predicated on a theory of resources. It is often assumed that quantum computers can be placed in a precise fiducial state prior to computation, and that logical operations are perfect, inducing no error on the system which they affect. These assumptions greatly simplify algorithmic design, but are fundamentally unrealistic. In order to justify their use, it is necessary to develop a framework for using a large number of imperfect devices to simulate the action of a perfect device, with some acceptable probability of failure. This is the study of fault-tolerant quantum computing. In order to pursue this study effectively, it is necessary to understand the fundamental nature of generic quantum states and operations, as well as the means by which one can correct quantum errors. Additionally, it is important to attempt to minimize the use of computational resources in achieving error reduction and fault-tolerant computing. \n \nThis thesis is concerned with three projects related to the use of error-prone quantum systems to transmit and manipulate information. The first of these is concerned with the use of imperfectly-prepared states in error-correction routines. Using optimal quantum error correction, we are able to deduce a method of partially protecting encoded quantum information against preparation errors prior to encoding, using no additional qubits. The second of these projects details the search for entangled states which can be used to transmit classical information over quantum channels at a rate superior to classical states. The third of these projects concerns the transcoding of data from one quantum code into another using few ancillary resources. The descriptions of these projects are preceded by a brief introduction to representations of quantum states and channels, for completeness. \n \nThree techniques of general interest are presented in appendices. The first is an introduction to, and a minor advance in the development of optimal error correction codes. The second is a more efficient means of calculating the action of a quantum channel on a given state, given that the channel acts non-trivially only on a subsystem, rather than the entire system. Finally, we include documentation on a software package developed to aid the search for quantum transcoding operations.
Quantum error correction is the backbone of fault-tolerant quantum computation, a necessary requirement for any large scale quantum computer. The fault-tolerance threshold theorem has long been a target for experimental precision, allowing for the possibility of reducing logical error rates to arbitrarily low levels without excessive overhead. While there are many promising fault-tolerant architectures, the path towards the most practical fault-tolerant scheme is far from decided and may vary for differing physical models. This thesis proposes new schemes for universal fault-tolerant quantum computation in both the concatenated and topological code settings. \n \nThrough the concatenation of two different error correcting codes, a set of universal fault-tolerant gates can be obtained without requiring the need for magic state distillation. A lower bound of 1.28times10−3 for the fault-tolerance threshold under circuit level depolarizing noise is obtained. Additionally, stacked codes are proposed as a means to simulate the action of a 3D topological code in 2D, allowing for the application of a universal set of transversal operations. While fault-tolerant, unfortunately the scheme does not exhibit a threshold due to the decreasing pseudo-threshold with growing code distance, yet points to potential interesting avenues for fault-tolerant computation in 2D without distillation. \n \nOne of the primary avenues to constructing fault-tolerant logical operations is through transversal operations. In this thesis, the set of single qubit logical gates that can be implemented transversally are characterized and determined to all belong to the Clifford hierarchy. Moreover, any diagonal two-qubit operation that can be applied transversally must belong to the same level of the Clifford hierarchy as the set of gates that can be implemented in the single-qubit case. \n \nThe opposite to quantum error correction is privacy, where the output of a channel is disguised from its input. The two are fundamentally related through the complementary channel construction. This thesis presents a new class of private quantum channels, expanding the existing class beyond a seemingly fundamental restriction. This yields interesting insights into the structure of quantum information and the leaking of information to external environments. Additionally, the duality is only recovered when extending the complementary channel to sufficiently high environmental dimension. \n \nFinally, the error properties of bucket brigade quantum Random Access Memory (qRAM) are assessed. It is determined that using the bucket brigade qRAM architecture for the running of Grover's algorithm necessitates reducing the error rate of the individual components to exponentially small levels for an exponential sized memory. As such, fault-tolerant architectures will likely play an essential role in the construction of such computing primitives.
Quantum computers have been shown to efficiently solve a class of problems for which no efficient solution is otherwise known. Physical systems can implement quantum computation, but devising realistic schemes is an extremely challenging problem largely due to the effect of noise. A quantum computer that is capable of correctly solving problems more rapidly than modern digital computers requires some use of so-called fault-tolerant components. Code-based fault-tolerance using quantum error-correcting codes is one of the most promising and versatile of the known routes for fault-tolerant quantum computation. This dissertation presents three main, new results about code-based fault-tolerant quantum computer architectures.
The first result is a large new family of quantum codes that go beyond stabilizer codes, the most well-studied family of quantum codes. Our new family of codeword stabilized codes contains all known codes with optimal parameters. Furthermore, we show how to systematically find, construct, and understand such codes as a pair of codes: an additive quantum code and a classical (nonlinear) code.
Second, we resolve an open question about universality of so-called transversal gates acting on stabilizer codes. Such gates are universal for classical fault-tolerant computation, but they were conjectured to be insufficient for universal fault-tolerant quantum computation. We show that transversal gates have a restricted form and prove that some important families of them cannot be quantum universal. This is strong evidence that so-called quantum software is necessary to achieve universality, and, therefore, fault-tolerant quantum computer architecture is fundamentally different from classical computer architecture.
Finally, we partition the fault-tolerant design problem into levels of a hierarchy of concatenated codes and present methods, compatible with rigorous threshold theorems, for numerically evaluating these codes. The methods are applied to measure inner error-correcting code performance, as a first step toward elucidation of an effective fault-tolerant quantum computer architecture that uses no more than a physical, inner, and outer level of coding. Of the inner codes, the Golay code gives the highest pseudothreshold of 2 × 10-3. A comparison of logical error rate and overhead shows that the Bacon-Shor codes are competitive with Knill's C 4/C6 scheme at a base error rate of 10 -4. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)
Given any quantum error correcting code permitting universal fault-tolerant quantum computation and transversal measurement of logical X and Z, we describe how to perform time-optimal quantum computation, meaning the execution of an arbitrary Clifford circuit followed by a layer of independent T gates and any necessary feedforward measurement determined corrective S gates all in the time of a single physical measurement. We assume fast classical processing and classical communication, and argue the reasonableness of this assumption. This enables fault-tolerant quantum computation to be performed orders of magnitude faster than previously thought possible, with the execution time independent of the error correction strength.
Quantum computers promise to solve computational problems that are inaccessible to classical machines. The reliable execution of large-scale quantum algorithms requires robust operations in the presence of noise. Quantum error correction addresses this challenge by encoding quantum information redundantly across several physical qubits, such that errors can be detected and corrected during a computation. However, no single error-correcting code intrinsically supports an inherently robust, fault-tolerant implementation of all gates needed for universal quantum computing. Moreover, most modern approaches to both quantum error correction and the implementation of universal logical operations on encoded qubits rely on mid-circuit measurements and feed-forward control. These types of operations are technologically demanding, often slow, and prone to high error rates, and they limit the overall success probability of quantum algorithms. In this thesis, we develop fault-tolerant protocols and circuits for quantum error correction and universal logical computation, with an emphasis on implementations compatible with current hardware systems. We first focus on fault-tolerant quantum error correction on small codes. By comparing different protocols, we identify trade-offs between compact circuit constructions and their robustness to noise. We then assess their practical performance by comparing numerical simulations of noisy circuits with experimental data. Beyond the preservation of encoded information, we study how universal logic can be implemented in a fault-tolerant manner on encoded qubits. A central approach considered in this thesis is code switching, in which logical information is transferred between two distinct error-correcting codes that support complementary sets of inherently fault-tolerant logical gates. In combination, these codes give access to a complete universal fault-tolerant logical gate set. In this thesis, we determine conditions that allow us to construct fault-tolerant protocols for code switching. We adapt these protocols to the capabilities of current hardware, thereby enabling the first experimental realization of universal fault-tolerant logic by means of code switching. However, the overall performance of these schemes is limited by slow and noisy mid-circuit measurements. To address this bottleneck, we construct a suite of measurement-free fault-tolerant universal operations that do not require any measurements during the execution of an algorithm. In this framework, error correction and logical operations are implemented coherently as part of the quantum circuit, without mid-circuit measurements or in-sequence classical control. We introduce measurement-free code-switching schemes that can be scaled to arbitrary code distances through concatenation, and which thereby provide, in principle, arbitrarily strong error suppression. We further tailor our approach to the capabilities of current trapped-ion quantum processors. New circuit constructions support the first experimental implementation of a logical quantum algorithm without mid-circuit measurements, demonstrated through Grover's search on three encoded qubits. Together, the results of this thesis expand the toolbox for early fault-tolerant quantum computation. They show how protocols for quantum error correction and universal logical gates can be designed without mid-circuit measurements with realistic hardware constraints in mind, opening new pathways towards universal quantum logic.