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arXiv:2405.05337 · Quantum

Characterization of errors in a CNOT between surface code patches

Bálint Domokos, Áron Márton, János K. Asbóth

Published Dec 27, 2024• 4 citations
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Abstract

As current experiments already realize small quantum circuits on error corrected qubits, it is important to fully understand the effect of physical errors on the logical error channels of these fault-tolerant circuits. Here, we investigate a lattice-surgery-based CNOT operation between two surface code patches under phenomenological error models. (i) For two-qubit logical Pauli measurements – the elementary building block of the CNOT – we optimize the number of stabilizer measurement rounds, usually taken equal to d , the size (code distance) of each patch. We find that the optimal number can be greater or smaller than d , depending on the rate of physical and readout errors, and the separation between the code patches. (ii) We fully characterize the two-qubit logical error channel of the lattice-surgery-based CNOT. We find a symmetry of the CNOT protocol, that results in a symmetry of the logical error channel. We also find that correlations between X and Z errors on the logical level are suppressed under minimum weight decoding.

DOI
10.22331/q-2024-12-27-1577

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As current experiments already realize small quantum circuits on error corrected qubits, it is important to fully understand the effect of physical errors on the logical error channels of these fault-tolerant circuits. Here, we investigate a lattice-surgery-based CNOT operation between two surface code patches under phenomenological error models. (i) For two-qubit logical Pauli measurements – the elementary building block of the CNOT – we optimize the number of stabilizer measurement rounds, usually taken equal to d , the size (code distance) of each patch. We find that the optimal number can be greater or smaller than d , depending on the rate of physical and readout errors, and the separation between the code patches. (ii) We fully characterize the two-qubit logical error channel of the lattice-surgery-based CNOT. We find a symmetry of the CNOT protocol, that results in a symmetry of the logical error channel. We also find that correlations between X and Z errors on the logical level are suppressed under minimum weight decoding.
In the era of early fault-tolerant quantum computing, basic demonstrations of entanglement operations between a few logical qubits are at the frontier of recent developments in quantum computing. In this work, we describe in detail, at both the logical and physical qubit levels, a logical teleportation protocol between two surface code logical qubits based on lattice surgery. We address several aspects of the teleportation protocol pertinent to superconducting qubit architectures. We explore the modularity constraints in the number and location of stabilizer readouts and compare variants of the teleportation protocol in this regard. Additionally, we investigate potential performance improvements related to in-sequence decision logic and the optimal size of the interface region between two surface code patches on a superconducting chip. Based on our simulations, we show possible near-term improvements in lattice surgery protocols that facilitate fault-tolerant quantum computing in superconducting circuit architectures.
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For planar architectures, surface code-based quantum error correction is one of the most promising approaches to fault-tolerant quantum computation. This is partially due to the variety of fault-tolerant logical protocols that can be implemented in two dimensions using local operations. One such protocol is the lattice surgery-based logical state teleportation, which transfers a logical quantum state from an initial location on a quantum chip to a target location through a linking region of qubits. This protocol serves as a basis for higher-level routines, such as the entangling cnot gate or magic state injection. In this work, we investigate the correctability phase diagram of this protocol for distinct error rates inside the surface code patches and within the linking region. We adopt techniques from statistical physics to describe the numerically observed crossover regime between correctable and uncorrectable quantum error correction phases, where the correctability depends on the separation between the initial and target locations. We find that inside the crossover regime the correctability-threshold lines decay as a power law with increasing separation, which we explain accurately using a finite-size scaling analysis. Our results indicate that the logical state teleportation protocol can tolerate much higher noise rates in the linking region compared to the bulk of the surface code patches, provided the separation between the positions is relatively small.
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Modular quantum computing is a leading candidate for scalable fault tolerant quantum computation. Performing lattice surgery using surface code patches in different modules requires the use of inter-module gates that are noisier than the local gates. Furthermore, the merged layouts during lattice surgery expose multiple directions in which hook errors can propagate to reduce the fault distance. Existing hook-avoiding schedules either increase the syndrome extraction circuit depth, or let link faults propagate into the bulk. We introduce a seam construction that allows splitting arbitrary merged rotated surface code layout into smaller patches with uniform boundaries that could keep their own hook-avoiding N/Z shaped schedule. At the seam we split weight-4 stabilizers into pairs of weight-2 stabilizers that are mediated through a Bell pair and measured within a CNOT depth of 4. We also employ the use of three-qubit CXX\texttt{CXX}CXX gates for parity measurements at the seam to maintain the minimum CNOT depth. Through this seam construction, we confine the elevated link error at the seam, protecting the bulk from higher error rate. We also give a custom detector annotator for such seams that can find the detector space, annotate detectors in the Stim circuits, and ensure that they are suitable to use by matching decoders. We implement our construction for the logical Pauli-XXXXXX measurement lattice surgery and a cross-shaped spatial junction and sweep the link error rate from 101010 times to 100100100 times a fixed bulk error rate, and show that our construction gives the lowest and most stable logical error rate than the other frameworks compared here.
Abstract Quantum error correction is needed for quantum computers to be capable of executing algorithms using hundreds of logical qubits in a fault-tolerant manner. Recent experiments have progressed towards this by demonstrating sufficiently low error rates for state preservation of a single logical qubit. However, quantum computation algorithms also require that these logical qubits can be entangled and that gate operations can be performed on them. Lattice surgery is a technique that offers a practical approach for implementing such gates, particularly in planar quantum processor layouts. Here we demonstrate lattice surgery between two distance-three repetition-code qubits by splitting a single distance-three surface-code qubit. Using a quantum circuit that is fault-tolerant for bit-flip errors, we achieve an improvement in the value of the decoded Z Z logical two-qubit observable compared with a similar non-encoded circuit. We therefore demonstrate the functional building blocks needed for lattice-surgery operations on larger-distance codes based on superconducting circuits.