Syndrome-measurements timing is usually treated as a fixed clock cycle of a quantum error-correcting code. For quantum memories, however, the intra-measurement interval is itself an optimizable control parameter: measuring too rarely allows idling errors to accumulate, whereas measuring too often introduces measurement-induced faults. We propose a phenomenological logical-noise model for this trade-off and analytically show that the optimal syndrome-measurements interval scales inversely proportionally with the code distance and that this produces an exponential reduction of logical-error rates in the distance relative to constant-interval schedules. Furthermore, for time-dependent idling noise, we develop an adaptive timing strategy based on the measured syndrome activity that outperforms every fixed-interval protocol, with largest gains for short but strong noise bursts. Simulations of rotated surface-code memories with matching decoding validate the phenomenological model, the distance-dependent optimum, and the adaptive-strategy improvement. Moreover, with the experimental noise parameters reported by Google in Nature 638 (2025), our model predicts reductions in logical-error rates per unit time of up to $40\%$.
Syndrome-measurements timing is usually treated as a fixed clock cycle of a quantum error-correcting code. For quantum memories, however, the intra-measurement interval is itself an optimizable control parameter: measuring too rarely allows idling errors to accumulate, whereas measuring too often introduces measurement-induced faults. We propose a phenomenological logical-noise model for this trade-off and analytically show that the optimal syndrome-measurements interval scales inversely proportionally with the code distance and that this produces an exponential reduction of logical-error rates in the distance relative to constant-interval schedules. Furthermore, for time-dependent idling noise, we develop an adaptive timing strategy based on the measured syndrome activity that outperforms every fixed-interval protocol, with largest gains for short but strong noise bursts. Simulations of rotated surface-code memories with matching decoding validate the phenomenological model, the distance-dependent optimum, and the adaptive-strategy improvement. Moreover, with the experimental noise parameters reported by Google in Nature 638 (2025), our model predicts reductions in logical-error rates per unit time of up to 40%.
Quantum error correction can suppress logical errors exponentially with code distance when physical noise is below threshold. Realizing this on hardware requires tight coordination among quantum gates, mid-circuit measurements, and qubit coherence. Device variation, noise asymmetry, and correlations across space and time complicate the translation of these capabilities into logical error suppression. Here, we study rotated surface-code memory on an IBM Nighthawk r2 processor. Performance varies across tested processor placements, which we attribute to differences in qubit quality. We optimize the code by combining short readout, fused measurement and reset, and an XX echo on data qubits during ancilla readout. Compared with standard readout without reset or echo, the optimized syndrome extraction circuit reduces the median per-round logical error rate by factors of 3.8 in the X basis and 1.4 in the Z basis. In memory experiments of up to 150 rounds, the distance advantage weakens, alongside long-lived correlations that may reflect a persistent error component. Under our optimization recipe, increasing the protected distance from 3 to 6 while holding the other distance fixed reduces the per-round logical error rate from 0.53% to 0.24% in Z memory and from 0.52% to 0.22% in X memory. The corresponding error-suppression factors under maximum-likelihood decoding are 1.68 and 1.85. These results connect circuit compilation and optimization to surface-code memory performance and limitations, and motivate QPU and QEC circuit codesign for fault-tolerant quantum computing primitives on current cloud hardware.
Recent progress in fault-tolerant quantum computing suggests that leveraging error-syndrome information at the logical layer can substantially improve performance, including the estimation of logical observables from noisy states. In this work, based on quantum estimation theory, we develop an information-theoretic framework to quantify the utility of error syndromes for noisy logical observable estimation. We distinguish two operational regimes of such syndrome-aware protocols: classical protocols, in which the logical measurement basis is fixed and syndrome information is used only in classical post-processing, and quantum protocols, in which the logical quantum control can be tailored to depend on the observed error syndrome. For classical syndrome-aware protocols, we prove a universal limitation: on average, syndrome information can improve the effective logical error rate by at most a factor of two, implying at most a quadratic reduction in sampling overhead. In contrast, once syndrome-conditioned quantum control is permitted, we demonstrate that the effective logical error rate decays exponentially with the number of code blocks. These findings provide fundamental guidance for designing future fault-tolerant architectures that actively exploit syndrome records rather than discarding them after decoding.
Quantum error correcting code can diagnose potential errors and correct them based on measured outcomes by leveraging syndrome measurement. However, mid-circuit measurement has been technically challenging for early fault-tolerant quantum computers and the readout-induced noise acts as a main contributor to the logical infidelity. We present a different method for syndrome extraction, namely , that requires only a single-shot measurement on a single ancilla, while the canonical syndrome measurement requires multiple measurements to extract the eigenvalue for each stabilizer generator. As such, we can detect the error in the logical state with minimized readout-induced noise. By adopting our method as a precheck routine for quantum error correcting cycles, we can significantly reduce the readout overhead, the idling time, and the logical error rate during syndrome measurement. We numerically analyze the performance of our protocol using Iceberg code and Steane code under realistic noise parameters based on superconducting hardware and demonstrate the advantage of our protocol in the near-term scenario. As mid-circuit measurements are still error-prone for near-term quantum hardware, our method could boost the applications of early fault-tolerant quantum computing. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Quantum error correction (QEC) is essential for realizing fault-tolerant quantum computation. Current QEC controllers execute all scheduled syndrome (parity-bit) measurement rounds before decoding, even when early syndrome data indicates that the run will result in an error. The resulting excess measurements increase the decoder's workload and system latency. To address this, we introduce an adaptive abort module that simultaneously reduces decoder overhead and suppresses logical error rates in surface codes and color codes under an existing QEC controller. The key idea is that initial syndrome information allows the controller to terminate risky shots early before additional resources are spent. An effective scheme balances the cost of further measurement against the restart cost and thus increases decoder efficiency.
Adaptive abort schemes dynamically adjust the number of syndrome measurement rounds per shot using real-time syndrome information. We consider three schemes: fixed-depth (FD) decoding (the standard non-adaptive approach used in current state-of-the-art QEC controllers), and two adaptive schemes, AdAbort and One-Step Lookahead (OSLA) decoding. For surface and color codes under a realistic circuit-level depolarizing noise model, AdAbort substantially outperforms both OSLA and FD, yielding higher decoder efficiency across a broad range of code distances. Numerically, as the code distance increases from 5 to 15, AdAbort yields an improvement that increases from 5% to 35% for surface codes and from 7% to 60% for color codes.
To our knowledge, these are the first adaptive abort schemes considered for QEC. Our results highlight the potential importance of abort rules for increasing efficiency as we scale to large, resource-intensive quantum architectures.
Quantum error correction (QEC) with single-shot decoding enables reduction of errors after every single round of noisy stabilizer measurement, easing the time-overhead requirements for fault tolerance. Notably, several classes of quantum low-density-parity-check (qLDPC) codes are known which facilitate single-shot decoding, potentially giving them an additional overhead advantage. However, the perceived advantage of single-shot decoding is limited because it can significantly degrade the effective code distance. This degradation may be compensated for by using a much larger code size to achieve the desired target logical error rate, at the cost of increasing the amount of syndrome information to be processed, as well as, increasing complexity of logical operations. Alternatively, in this work we study sliding-window decoding, which corrects errors from previous syndrome measurement rounds while leaving the most recent errors for future correction. We observe that sliding-window decoding significantly improves the logical memory lifetime and hence the effective distance compared to single-shot decoding on hypergraph-product codes and lifted-product codes. Remarkably, we find that this improvement may not cost a larger decoding complexity. Thus, the sliding-window strategy can be more desirable for fast and accurate decoding for fault-tolerant quantum computing with qLDPC codes.
Advancing quantum information processors and building fault-tolerant architectures rely on the ability to accurately characterize the noise sources and suppress their impact on quantum devices. In practice, noise often drifts over time, whereas conventional noise characterization and decoding methods typically assume stationarity or provide only a time-average behavior of the noise. This treatment can result in suboptimal decoding performance. In this work, we present a rigorous analytical framework to capture time-dependent Pauli noise, by exploiting the syndrome statistics of quantum error correction experiments. We propose a sliding-window estimation method which allows us to recover the frequency components of the noise, by using optimal window sizes that we derive analytically. We prove the noise-filtering behavior of sliding windows, linking window size to spectral cutoff frequencies, and provide an iterative algorithm that captures multiple drift frequencies. We further introduce an overlapping window algorithm that enables us to capture rapid multi-frequency noise drifts in a single-pass fashion. Simulations for both phenomenological and circuit-level noise models validate our framework, demonstrating robust tracking of multi-frequency drift. The logical error rate obtained from our estimated models consistently align with the ground-truth logical error rate, and we find suppression of logical errors compared to static error models. Our window-based estimation methods and adaptive decoding offer new insights into noise spectroscopy and decoder optimization under drift using only syndrome data.