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arXiv:2007.11083 · Physical Review A

Sufficient conditions and constraints for reversing general quantum errors

Alvin Gonzales, Daniel Dilley, Mark Byrd

Published Dec 21, 2020• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Reversing the effects of a quantum evolution, for example, as is done in error correction, is an important task for controlling quantum systems in order to produce reliable quantum devices. When the evolution is governed by a completely positive map, there exist reversibility conditions, known as the quantum error correcting code conditions, which are necessary and sufficient conditions for the reversibility of a quantum operation on a subspace, the code space. However, if we suppose that the evolution is not described by a completely positive map, necessary and sufficient conditions are not known. Here we consider evolutions that do not necessarily correspond to a completely positive map. We prove that the completely positive map error correcting code conditions can lead to a code space that is not in the domain of the map, meaning that the output of the map is not positive. A corollary to our theorem provides a class of relevant examples. Finally, we provide a set of sufficient conditions that will enable the use of quantum error correcting code conditions while ensuring positivity.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.102.062415

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Reversing the effects of a quantum evolution, for example, as is done in error correction, is an important task for controlling quantum systems in order to produce reliable quantum devices. When the evolution is governed by a completely positive map, there exist reversibility conditions, known as the quantum error correcting code conditions, which are necessary and sufficient conditions for the reversibility of a quantum operation on a subspace, the code space. However, if we suppose that the evolution is not described by a completely positive map, necessary and sufficient conditions are not known. Here we consider evolutions that do not necessarily correspond to a completely positive map. We prove that the completely positive map error correcting code conditions can lead to a code space that is not in the domain of the map, meaning that the output of the map is not positive. A corollary to our theorem provides a class of relevant examples. Finally, we provide a set of sufficient conditions that will enable the use of quantum error correcting code conditions while ensuring positivity.
We derive simple necessary and sufficient conditions under which a quantum channel obtained from an arbitrary perturbation from the identity can be reversed on a given code to the lowest order in fidelity. We find the usual Knill-Laflamme conditions applied to a certain operator subspace which, for a generic perturbation, is generated by the Lindblad operators. For a weak interaction with an environment, the error space to be corrected is a subspace of that spanned by the interaction operators, selected by the environment's initial state.
We show that the multiplicative domain of a completely positive map yields a new class of quantum error correcting codes. In the case of a unital quantum channel, these are precisely the codes that do not require a measurement as part of the recovery process, the so-called unitarily correctable codes. In the arbitrary, not necessarily unital case, they form a proper subset of unitarily correctable codes that can be computed from the properties of the channel. As part of the analysis, we derive a representation theoretic characterization of subsystem codes. We also present a number of illustrative examples.
We introduce a generalisation of quantum error correction, relaxing the requirement that a code should identify and correct a set of physical errors on the Hilbert space of a quantum computer exactly, instead allowing recovery up to a pre-specified admissible set of errors on the code space. We call these quantum error transmuting codes. They are of particular interest for the simulation of noisy quantum systems, and for use in algorithms inherently robust to errors of a particular character. Necessary and sufficient algebraic conditions on the set of physical and admissible errors for error transmutation are derived, generalising the Knill-Laflamme quantum error correction conditions. We demonstrate how some existing codes, including fermionic encodings, have error transmuting properties to interesting classes of admissible errors. Additionally, we report on the existence of some new codes, including low-qubit and translation invariant examples.
Quantum error correction will be necessary for preserving coherent states against noise and other unwanted interactions in quantum computation and communication. We develop a general theory of quantum error correction based on encoding states into larger Hilbert spaces subject to known interactions. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect recovery of an encoded state after its degradation by an interaction. The conditions depend only on the behavior of the logical states. We use them to give a recovery-operator-independent definition of error-correcting codes. We relate this definition to four others: the existence of a left inverse of the interaction, an explicit representation of the error syndrome using tensor products, perfect recovery of the completely entangled state, and an information theoretic identity. Two notions of fidelity and error for imperfect recovery are introduced, one for pure and the other for entangled states. The latter is more appropriate when using codes in a quantum memory or in applications of quantum teleportation to communication. We show that the error for entangled states is bounded linearly by the error for pure states. A formal definition of independent interactions for qubits is given. This leads to lower bounds on the number of qubits required to correct e errors and a formal proof that the classical bounds on the probability of error of e-error-correcting codes applies to e-error-correcting quantum codes, provided that the interaction is dominated by an identity component.
The most general method for encoding quantum information is not to encode the information into a subspace of a Hilbert space, but to encode information into a subsystem of a Hilbert space. Recently this notion has led to a more general notion of quantum error correction known as operator quantum error correction. In standard quantum error-correcting codes, one requires the ability to apply a procedure which exactly reverses on the error-correcting subspace any correctable error. In contrast, for operator error-correcting subsystems, the correction procedure need not undo the error which has occurred, but instead one must perform corrections only modulo the subsystem structure. This does not lead to codes which differ from subspace codes, but does lead to recovery routines which explicitly make use of the subsystem structure. Here we present two examples of such operator error-correcting subsystems. These examples are motivated by simple spatially local Hamiltonians on square and cubic lattices. In three dimensions we provide evidence, in the form a simple mean field theory, that our Hamiltonian gives rise to a system which is self-correcting. Such a system will be a natural high-temperature quantum memory, robust to noise without external intervening quantum error-correction procedures.
Given a completely positive map, we introduce a set of algebras that we refer to as its generalized multiplicative domains. These algebras are generalizations of the traditional multiplicative domain of a completely positive map, and we derive a characterization of them in the unital, trace-preserving case, in other words the case of unital quantum channels, that extends Choi’s characterization of the multiplicative domains of unital maps. We also derive a characterization that is in the same flavour as a well-known characterization of bimodules, and we use these algebras to provide a new representation-theoretic description of quantum error-correcting codes that extends previous results for unitarily-correctable codes, noiseless subsystems and decoherence-free subspaces.