The distance of a quantum code is a fundamental metric that dictates its error-correction capability. While quantum low-density parity-check (qLDPC) families such as Bivariate Bicycle (BB) codes offer a promising pathway to low-overhead fault-tolerant quantum computing, computing their distance is challenging. Current exact solvers and even search heuristics that provide a distance upper bound suffer from severe computational bottlenecks, restricting the discovery of optimal codes. In this paper, we construct a dataset of BB codes with corresponding distance upper bounds obtained through high-budget heuristic searches. We introduce BB-Net, an attention-based neural network architecture for predicting the distance of BB codes. It achieves 96.39% accuracy on the reference distances in the test set, compared with 94.86% for state-of-the-art heuristics with a budget of up to $10^{4}$ times more computational runtime. On a subset with certified exact distances, BB-Net achieves 98.94%. By relieving the distance-calculation bottleneck, BB-Net enables faster screening of large code spaces, particularly in ML-driven search pipelines, and thereby can accelerate the discovery of novel quantum error-correcting codes, an important capability for advancing scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing. Our code is publicly available: https://github.com/NadavSc/BBNet
The distance of a quantum code is a fundamental metric that dictates its error-correction capability. While quantum low-density parity-check (qLDPC) families such as Bivariate Bicycle (BB) codes offer a promising pathway to low-overhead fault-tolerant quantum computing, computing their distance is challenging. Current exact solvers and even search heuristics that provide a distance upper bound suffer from severe computational bottlenecks, restricting the discovery of optimal codes. In this paper, we construct a dataset of BB codes with corresponding distance upper bounds obtained through high-budget heuristic searches. We introduce BB-Net, an attention-based neural network architecture for predicting the distance of BB codes. It achieves 96.39% accuracy on the reference distances in the test set, compared with 94.86% for state-of-the-art heuristics with a budget of up to 104 times more computational runtime. On a subset with certified exact distances, BB-Net achieves 98.94%. By relieving the distance-calculation bottleneck, BB-Net enables faster screening of large code spaces, particularly in ML-driven search pipelines, and thereby can accelerate the discovery of novel quantum error-correcting codes, an important capability for advancing scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing. Our code is publicly available: https://github.com/NadavSc/BBNet
Bivariate bicycle (BB) codes of Bravyi \emph{et al.}~\cite{Bravyi2024} are quantum low-density parity-check codes with weight-6 checks, exemplified by [[144,12,12]] with kd2/n=12. We develop the algebraic structure theory of BB-type codes with weight-8 checks (weight-4 generator polynomials) and use it, together with an exactly validated search pipeline, to construct and certify new codes. We prove an exact dimension formula k=2dimR/(A,B) (forcing even k), a 4ℓm-element symmetry group on generator pairs, an X/Z distance equality dX=dZ, and a family of subgroup-coset kernel vectors giving rigorous distance upper bounds and a design rule for high-distance constructions; all distances are computed exhaustively by a cross-validated bit-mask verifier. At n=144 the pipeline returns a census of 53 codes whose strongest members surpass the BB benchmark: [[144,6,d≥15]] exceeds the benchmark distance 12 (certified d≥15), [[144,10,12]] reaches it with weight-8 checks, and [[144,16,10]] encodes a third more logical qubits at kd2/n=11.11 (7.4% below benchmark) while decoding no worse. At n=72, [[72,14,8]] attains kd2/n=12.44---more than twice the same-length BB code---and decodes better; a circuit-level memory experiment places our weight-8 codes at ≈0.1% pseudo-threshold versus ≈0.4% for the BB reference under an identical model, quantifying the threshold cost of the heavier checks. All structural statements are verified numerically on the whole census.
Erasure qubits reduce overhead in fault-tolerant quantum error correction (QEC) by converting dominant faults into detectable errors known as erasures. They have demonstrated notable improvements in thresholds and scaling in surface and Floquet code memories. In this work, we use erasure qubits on Bivariate Bicycle (BB) codes from the quantum low-density parity-check (QLDPC) regime. Owing to their sparse structure and favorable rate-distance trade-offs, BB codes are practical candidates for QEC. We introduce BiBiEQ, a novel framework that compiles a given BB code into an erasure-aware memory circuit C_E. This erasure circuit C_E comprises erasure checks (ECs), resets, and erasures spread over a user-specified erasure check schedule (2EC, 4EC). BiBiEQ converts this erasure circuit C_E into the stabilizer circuit C for general-purpose decoding. BiBiEQ provides two engines for this conversion, BiBiEQ-Exact and BiBiEQ-Approx. BiBiEQ-Exact preserves the joint-erasure correlations and serves as our accuracy benchmark, while BiBiEQ-Approx uses an independence approximation to accelerate large sweeps and expose accuracy-throughput trade-offs. Using BiBiEQ, we decode the stabilizer circuits to get a per-round logical error rate (LER) for the BB codes and quantify the effect of the EC schedules on the correctable operating region below the pseudo-threshold. The 4EC schedule keeps the accuracy of both engines close to one another, making BiBiEQ-Approx a reliable proxy for BiBiEQ-Exact for faster sweeps. Below the pseudo-threshold, the code distance (d) hop from distance (d) 6 to 10 yields a drop in LER by 10-17x larger than distance (d) 10 to 12, showing that most gains are realized by d=10.
Quantum low density parity check (qLDPC) codes, particularly bivariate bicycle (BB) codes, achieve competitive fault tolerance thresholds while offering substantially higher encoding rates than planar surface codes. However, their intrinsically long-range stabilizer structure makes them difficult to implement on monolithic devices with nearest neighbor connectivity and limited qubit capacity. In this work, we study the realization of a BB code in a modular multiprocessor architecture, where quantum processors are interconnected through shared Bell pairs. We consider processors with all to all internal connectivity, which is feasible on trapped ion and neutral atom platforms, enabling flexible local gate execution while inter-processor (nonlocal) gates are mediated by shared entanglement. We describe a star network architecture that can realize this distributed setting. We partition the qubits of the [[144,12,12]] BB code across 4, 6, and 12 quantum processors and analyze the resulting logical error rates and pseudo-threshold performance under circuit level noise by varying the number of processors and a scaling factor that captures the additional noise associated with nonlocal operations. We use Monte Carlo simulations with BP+OSD decoding and extend the previously known BB code ansatz to the distributed setting. Our results provide architectural insight and design considerations for distributed BB codes in modular quantum computing architectures.
Erasure qubits reduce overhead in fault-tolerant quantum error correction (QEC) by converting dominant faults into detectable errors known as erasures. They have demonstrated notable improvements in thresholds and scaling in surface and Floquet code memories. In this work, we use erasure qubits on Bivariate Bicycle (BB) codes from the quantum low-density parity-check (QLDPC) regime. Owing to their sparse structure and favorable rate-distance trade-offs, BB codes are practical candidates for QEC. We introduce BiBiEQ, a novel framework that compiles a given BB code into an erasure-aware memory circuitCE. This erasure circuitCEcomprises erasure checks (ECs), resets, and erasures spread over a user-specified erasure check schedule (2EC, 4EC). BiBiEQ converts this erasure circuitCEinto the stabilizer circuitCfor general-purpose decoding. BiBiEQ provides two engines for this conversion, BiBiEQ-Exact and BiBiEQ-Approx. BiBiEQ-Exact preserves the joint-erasure correlations and serves as our accuracy benchmark, while BiBiEQ-Approx uses an independence approximation to accelerate large sweeps and expose accuracy-throughput tradeoffs. Using BiBiEQ, we decode the stabilizer circuits to get a per-round logical error rate (LER) for the BB codes and quantify the effect of the EC schedules on the correctable operating region below the pseudo-threshold. The4ECschedule keeps the accuracy of both engines close to one another, making BiBiEQ-Approx a reliable proxy for BiBiEQ-Exact for faster sweeps. Below the pseudo-threshold, the code distance (d) hop fromd:6→10yields a drop in LER by≈10−17×larger thand:10→12, showing that most gains are realized byd=10.
Quantum low-density parity-check (qLDPC) codes are promising candidates for fault-tolerant quantum computation due to their high encoding rates and distances. However, implementing logical operations using qLDPC codes presents significant challenges. Previous research has demonstrated that self-dual qLDPC codes facilitate the implementation of transversal Clifford gates. Here we introduce a method for constructing self-dual qLDPC codes by stacking non-self-dual qLDPC codes. Leveraging this methodology, we develop double-chain bicycle codes, double-layer bivariate bicycle (BB) codes, double-layer twisted BB codes, and double-layer reflection codes, many of which exhibit favorable code parameters. Additionally, we conduct numerical calculations to assess the performance of these codes as quantum memory under the circuit-level noise model, revealing that the logical failure rate can be significantly reduced with high pseudo-thresholds.
Quantum convolutional neural networks (QCNNs) combine the power of quantum computing and classical CNN for computational speedup in classification tasks. However, noise levels on state-of-the-art quantum devices remain too high for practical QCNN execution. In addition, despite the reliable surface code providing a method for error rates below a threshold value, they have a prohibitively large qubit cost. Recently introduced bivariate bicycle (BB) codes are of particular interest for their high error threshold, constant encoding rate, and linear code distance. Through simulation with realistic hardware noise sources, we demonstrate that a 4-qubit unprotected QCNN fails to converge and exhibits a worse learning rate compared to numerical simulations. Addressing both limitations, we propose a distance-4 BB quantum error-correction (QEC) technique for QCNNs. In doing so, we validate that our low-overhead QEC technique for QCNNS represents a step toward practical QCNNs.