We explore a deep connection between fracton order and product codes. In particular, we propose and analyze conditions on classical seed codes which lead to fracton order in the resulting quantum product codes. Depending on the properties of the input codes, product codes can realize either Type-I or Type-II fracton models, in both nonlocal and local constructions. For the nonlocal case, we show that a recently proposed model of lineons on nonlocal graphs can be obtained as a hypergraph product code. Interestingly, constrained mobility in this model arises only from energy barriers associated with the graph. For the local case, we introduce a novel type of classical LDPC code defined on a planar aperiodic tiling. By considering the specific example of the pinwheel tiling, we demonstrate the systematic construction of local Type-I and Type-II fracton models as product codes. Our work establishes product codes as a natural setting for exploring fracton order.
We explore a deep connection between fracton order and product codes. In particular, we propose and analyze conditions on classical seed codes which lead to fracton order in the resulting quantum product codes. Depending on the properties of the input codes, product codes can realize either Type-I or Type-II fracton models, in both nonlocal and local constructions. For the nonlocal case, we show that a recently proposed model of lineons on nonlocal graphs can be obtained as a hypergraph product code. Interestingly, constrained mobility in this model arises only from energy barriers associated with the graph. For the local case, we introduce a novel type of classical LDPC code defined on a planar aperiodic tiling. By considering the specific example of the pinwheel tiling, we demonstrate the systematic construction of local Type-I and Type-II fracton models as product codes. Our work establishes product codes as a natural setting for exploring fracton order.
Product constructions constitute a powerful method for generating quantum CSS codes, yielding celebrated examples such as toric codes and asymptotically good low-density parity check (LDPC) codes. Since a CSS code is fully described by a chain complex, existing product formalisms are predominantly homological, defined via the tensor product of the underlying chain complexes of input codes, thereby establishing a natural connection between quantum codes and topology. In this Letter, we introduce the \textit{quantum bootstrap product} (QBP), an approach that extends beyond this standard homological paradigm. Specifically, a QBP code is determined by solving a consistency condition termed the ``bootstrap equation''. We find that the QBP paradigm unifies a wide range of important codes, including general hypergraph product (HGP) codes of arbitrary dimensions and fracton codes typically represented by the X-cube code. Crucially, the solutions to the bootstrap equation yield chain complexes where the chain groups and associated boundary maps consist of multiple components. We term such structures \textit{fork complexes}. This structure elucidates the underlying topological structures of fracton codes, akin to foliated fracton order theories. Beyond conceptual insights, we demonstrate that the QBP paradigm can generate self-correcting quantum codes from input codes with constant energy barriers and surpass the code-rate upper bounds inherent to HGP codes. Our work thus substantially extends the scope of quantum product codes and provides a versatile framework for designing fault-tolerant quantum memories.
We continue the study of classical and quantum low-density parity check (LDPC) codes from a physical perspective. We focus on constructive approaches and formulate a general framework for systematically constructing codes with various features on generic Euclidean and non-Euclidean graphs. These codes can serve as fixed-point limits for phases of matter. To build our machinery, we unpack various product constructions from the coding literature in terms of physical principles such as symmetries and redundancies, introduce a new cubic product, and combine these products with the ideas of gauging and Higgsing introduced in Part I. We illustrate the usefulness of this approach in finite Euclidean dimensions by showing that using the one-dimensional Ising model as a starting point, we can systematically produce a very large zoo of classical and quantum phases of matter, including type I and type II fractons and SPT phases with generalized symmetries. We also use the balanced product to construct new Euclidean models, including one with topological order enriched by translation symmetry, and another exotic fracton model whose excitations are formed by combining those of a fractal spin liquid with those of a toric code, resulting in exotic mobility constraints. Moving beyond Euclidean models, we give a review of existing constructions of good qLDPC codes and classical locally testable codes and elaborate on the relationship between quantum code distance and classical energy barriers, discussed in Part I, from the perspective of product constructions.
Product code construction is a powerful tool for constructing quantum stabilizer codes, which serve as a promising paradigm for realizing fault-tolerant quantum computation. Furthermore, the natural mapping between stabilizer codes and the ground states of exactly solvable spin models also motivates the exploration of many-body orders in the stabilizer codes. In this work, we investigate the fracton topological orders in a family of codes obtained by a recently proposed general construction. More specifically, this code family can be regarded as a class of generalized hypergraph product (HGP) codes. We term the corresponding exactly solvable spin models \textit{orthoplex models}, based on the geometry of the stabilizers. In the 3D orthoplex model, we identify a series of intriguing properties within this model family, including non-monotonic ground state degeneracy (GSD) as a function of system size and non-Abelian lattice defects. Most remarkably, in 4D we discover \textit{fragmented topological excitations}: while such excitations manifest as discrete, isolated points in real space, their projections onto lower-dimensional subsystems form connected objects such as loops, revealing the intrinsic topological nature of these excitations. Therefore, fragmented excitations constitute an intriguing intermediate class between point-like and spatially extended topological excitations. In addition, these rich features establish the generalized HGP codes as a versatile and analytically tractable platform for studying the physics of fracton orders.
Quantum error-correcting codes with translation symmetry and local checks have been studied extensively, leading to a wide variety of fracton codes in three or more dimensions which lack a complete unifying picture. Recently, the study of translation-invariant codes with long-range checks has revealed impressive performance for small fixed-size instances in two dimensions. Here, we provide a unifying picture for a large family of translation-invariant codes, both local and long-range, that captures many fracton codes and all Abelian Two-Block Group Algebra (A2BGA) codes, including the Bivariate Bicycle (BB) codes. The balanced product structure of A2BGA codes leads to a local parent code that is a hypergraph product fracton model in a higher dimension. Different compactifications of a parent code produce a wide variety of descendant codes which provides a unifying picture for their properties. In particular, all BB codes with the same check weight are derived from a single parent hypergraph product fracton model. This construction allows us to extend Wang and Pryadko's code-parameter bounds for Generalized Bicycle codes to A2BGA codes. We conjecture that the transversal gates and energy barriers of the translation-invariant descendant codes are limited by those of their parent fracton models.
The hypergraph product (HGP) construction of quantum error-correcting codes (QECC) offers a general and explicit method for building a QECC from two classical codes, thereby paving the way for the discovery of good quantum low-density parity-check codes. In this letter, we propose a general and explicit construction recipe for QECCs from a total of D classical codes for arbitrary D. Following this recipe guarantees the obtainment of a QECC within the stabilizer formalism and nearly exhausts all possible constructions. As examples, we demonstrate that our construction recovers the HGP construction when D = 2 and leads to four distinct types of constructions for D = 3, including a previously studied case as one of them. When the input classical codes are repetition codes, our D = 3 constructions unify various three-dimensional lattice models into a single framework, encompassing the three-dimensional toric code model, a fracton model, and two other intriguing models not previously investigated. Among these, two types of constructions exhibit a trade-off between code distance and code dimension for a fixed number of qubits by adjusting the lengths of the different classical codes, and the optimal choice can simultaneously achieve relatively large values for both code distance and code dimension. Our general construction protocol provides another perspective for enriching the structure of QECCs and enables the exploration of richer possibilities for good codes.
We generalize fractalization, a procedure for the construction of fracton models, from space to spacetime. We apply spacetime fractalization to construct fracton floquet codes with syndrome excitations that have limited mobility in space and time. This extends the notion of fracton order to intrinsically dynamical quantum phases of matter that are inequivalent to static fracton phases. We find spacetime type-II fracton floquet codes which have no topological excitations that are mobile in space or time. These codes exhibit an extreme form of quantum discrete time crystal order with response periods that scale exponentially in their linear system sizes. In this context, the no-strings rule that characterizes type-II fractons leads to a superlinear scaling of the floquet code fault-distance with time, potentially lowering the time overhead required for quantum error correction.