A technique for realizing a universal set of fault-tolerant quantum operations is the code switching method, which leverages two quantum codes with complementary sets of transversal gates. To date, the application of this technique has been largely limited to families of color codes supporting a logical
T gate. No analogous code switching protocols exist for many other prominent families, such as rotated surface codes, or for finer
Z-rotation gates. In this work, we first utilize the doubling technique as a unified framework to construct a class of quantum color codes encoding a single logical qubit with an arbitrarily large minimum distance, enabling the transversal realization of arbitrary small logical
Z-rotation gates. We investigate the structural properties of this code family, demonstrating that they improve upon the parameters of state-of-the-art triorthogonal codes, achieve lower qubit overhead compared to certain known color codes, and admit single-shot decoding of
Z-syndromes via meta-checks. Furthermore, we show that this framework extends beyond color codes; specifically, it enables the generation of
r-orthogonal quantum codes,
r≥2, that inherit the local geometry of rotated surface codes. We then provide an overhead optimization protocol alongside several candidate codes tailored for realizing logical
Z-rotation gates within rotated surface codes. Finally, we extend the fault-tolerant code switching protocol based on transversal CNOT gates to incorporate fault-tolerant realization of
Z-rotation gates at any level of the Clifford hierarchy for geometries compatible with rotated surface codes. We present the first demonstration of fault-tolerant magic state preparation by means of code switching within a distance-three rotated surface code using a total footprint of only 45 physical qubits, and evaluate its performance through a simulation.
Practical large-scale quantum computation requires both efficient error correction and robust implementation of logical operations. Three-dimensional (3D) color codes are a promising candidate for fault-tolerant quantum computation due to their transversal non-Clifford gates, but efficient decoding remains challenging. In this work, we extend previous decoders for two-dimensional color codes [1], which are based on the restriction of the decoding problem to a subset of the qubit lattice, to three dimensions. Including boundaries of 3D color codes, we demonstrate that the 3D restriction decoder achieves optimal scaling of the logical error rate and a threshold value of 1.55(6)% for code-capacity bit- and phase-flip noise, which is almost a factor of two higher than previously reported for this family of codes [2, 3]. We furthermore present qCodePlot3D, a Python package for visualizing 2D and 3D color codes, error configurations, and decoding paths, which supports the development and analysis of such decoders. These advancements contribute to making 3D color codes a more practical option for exploring fault-tolerant quantum computation.
This thesis is devoted to studying a class of quantum error-correcting codes — topological quantum codes. We explore the question of how one can achieve fault- tolerant quantum computation with topological codes. We treat quantum error-correcting codes not only as a compelling ingredient needed to build a quantum computer, but also as a useful theoretical tool in other areas of physics. In particular, we explore what insights topological codes can provide into challenging questions, such as the classification of quantum phases of matter. In this thesis, we focus on a family of topological codes — color codes, which are particularly intriguing due to the rich physics they display and their computational power. We start by introducing color codes and explaining their basic properties. Then, we show how to perform fault-tolerant universal quantum computation with three-dimensional color codes by transverse gates and code switching. We later compare the resource overhead of the code-switching approach with that of a state distillation scheme. We discuss how to perform error correction with the toric and color codes, as well as introduce local decoders for those two families of codes. By exploiting a connection between error correction and statistical mechanics we estimate the storage threshold error rates for bit-flip and phase-flip noise in the three-dimensional color code. We finish by showing that the color and toric code families in d dimensions are equivalent in a sense of local unitary transformations and explore implications of this equivalence.
We investigate how to implement fault-tolerant logical Hadamard gates in Reed-Muller quantum codes(RMQCs) using the gauge-fixing method. During the realization, we consider the influence of random single-qubit errors by performing the error-detecting measurements. Moreover, some error-detecting stabilizers are simplified by the existing syndromes. Then we identify the errors and modify the syndromes, and refer to the modified syndromes to select the fix operations, and finally perform the error-correcting and fix operations together. Further, we establish a graph model for the RMQCs and exhibit a progress of how to find the fix operations for the unsatisfied stabilizers. We simulate the progress of finding corresponding fix operations for 31-quibt and 63-qubit RMQCs and the whole process of realizing logical Hadamard gate with random single-qubit errors for 15-qubit and 31-quibt RMQCs. Results show that correct fix operations can be obtained and fault-tolerant logical Hadamard gates can be realized as expected. With the implementation of the logical Hadamard gate, a universal fault-tolerant gate set is achieved in single RMQC.
The [[7,1,3]] Steane code and [[23,1,7]] quantum Golay code have been identified as good candidates for fault-tolerant quantum computing via code concatenation. These two codes have transversal implementations of all Clifford gates but require some other scheme for fault-tolerant
T gates. Using magic states, Clifford operations, and measurements is one common scheme, but magic-state distillation can have a large overhead. Code conversion is one avenue for implementing a universal gate set fault tolerantly without the use of magic-state distillation. Analogously to how the [[7,1,3]] Steane code can be fault tolerantly converted to and from the [[15,1,3]] Reed-Muller code which has a transversal
T gate, the [[23,1,7]] Golay code can be converted to a [[95,1,7]] triorthogonal code with a transversal
T gate. A crucial ingredient of this procedure is the [[49,1,5]] triorthogonal code, which can itself be seen as being related to the self-dual [[17,1,5]] two-dimensional color code. Additionally, a method for code conversion based on a transversal cnot between the codes, rather than stabilizer measurements, is described.
Quantum error correction (QEC) codes are traditionally defined and searched for without specifying the manner in which its syndrome extraction circuits are executed using elementary gates and measurements. We show how morphing circuits introduced in Refs. [1-3] provide a way of optimising syndrome extraction circuits and codes directly in terms of connectivity, choice of two-qubit gate (ISWAP versus CNOT) and number of physical qubits. We discuss morphing circuits in code optimisation among Abelian two-block group algebra (2BGA) codes, handling boundaries for 2D codes, codes with single-shot properties, and improving performance in stability experiments against measurement and reset errors. We show that alternating syndrome extraction circuits - executed with alternating time-reversed rounds - can be viewed as a two-round morphing circuit whose fault-tolerant properties are computationally much easier to examine than non-alternating syndrome extraction circuits. Our methods find new codes and syndrome extraction circuits of practical interest, including Abelian 2BGA morphing circuits with better code parameters and connectivity than existing circuits.
[1] Matt McEwen, Dave Bacon, and Craig Gidney. Relaxing hardware requirements for surface code circuits using time-dynamics. Quantum, 7:1172, 2023. [2] Craig Gidney and Cody Jones. New circuits and an open source decoder for the color code, 2023. [3] Mackenzie H. Shaw and Barbara M. Terhal. Lowering connectivity requirements for bivariate bicycle codes using morphing circuits.