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IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW)

Stabilizer subsystem codes with spatially local generators

Sergey B. Bravyi

Published Aug 1, 2010• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We derive new tradeoffs for reliable quantum information storage in a 2D local architecture based on subsystem quantum codes. Our results apply to stabilizer subsystem codes, that is, stabilizer codes in which part of the logical qubits does not encode any information. A stabilizer subsystem code can be specified by its gauge group - a subgroup of the Pauli group that includes the stabilizers and the logical operators on the unused logical qubits. We assume that the physical qubits are arranged on a two-dimensional grid and the gauge group has spatially local generators such that each generator acts only on a few qubits located close to each other. Our main result is an upper bound kd = O(n), where k is the number of encoded qubits, d is the minimal distance, and n is the number of physical qubits. In the special case when both gauge group and the stabilizer group have spatially local generators, we derive a stronger bound kd2= O(n) which is tight up to a constant factor.

DOI
10.1109/cig.2010.5592872

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We derive new tradeoffs for reliable quantum information storage in a 2D local architecture based on subsystem quantum codes. Our results apply to stabilizer subsystem codes, that is, stabilizer codes in which part of the logical qubits does not encode any information. A stabilizer subsystem code can be specified by its gauge group - a subgroup of the Pauli group that includes the stabilizers and the logical operators on the unused logical qubits. We assume that the physical qubits are arranged on a two-dimensional grid and the gauge group has spatially local generators such that each generator acts only on a few qubits located close to each other. Our main result is an upper bound kd = O(n), where k is the number of encoded qubits, d is the minimal distance, and n is the number of physical qubits. In the special case when both gauge group and the stabilizer group have spatially local generators, we derive a stronger bound kd2= O(n) which is tight up to a constant factor.
We study subsystem codes whose gauge group has local generators in two-dimensional (2D) geometry. It is shown that there exists a family of such codes defined on lattices of size $L\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}L$ with the number of logical qubits kkk and the minimum distance ddd both proportional to LLL. The gauge group of these codes involves only two-qubit generators of type XX\mathit{XX}XX and ZZ\mathit{ZZ}ZZ coupling nearest-neighbor qubits (and some auxiliary one-qubit generators). Our proof is not constructive as it relies on a certain version of the Gilbert-Varshamov bound for classical codes. Along the way, we introduce and study properties of generalized Bacon-Shor codes that might be of independent interest. Secondly, we prove that any 2D subsystem [n,k,d][n,k,d][n,k,d] code with spatially local generators obeys upper bounds kd=O(n)\mathit{kd}=O(n)kd=O(n) and d2=O(n){d}^{2}=O(n)d2=O(n). The analogous upper bound proved recently for 2D stabilizer codes is kd2=O(n){\mathit{kd}}^{2}=O(n)kd2=O(n). Our results thus demonstrate that subsystem codes can be more powerful than stabilizer codes under the spatial locality constraint.
We study properties of stabilizer codes that permit a local description on a regular D -dimensional lattice. Specifically, we assume that the stabilizer group of a code (the gauge group for subsystem codes) can be generated by local Pauli operators such that the support of any generator is bounded by a hypercube of size O (1). Our first result concerns the optimal scaling of the distance d with the linear size of the lattice L . We prove an upper bound d = O ( L D -1 ) which is tight for D =1, 2. This bound applies to both subspace and subsystem stabilizer codes. Secondly, we analyze the suitability of stabilizer codes for building a self-correcting quantum memory. Any stabilizer code with geometrically local generators can be naturally transformed to a local Hamiltonian penalizing states that violate the stabilizer condition. A degenerate ground state of this Hamiltonian corresponds to the logical subspace of the code. We prove that for D =1, 2, different logical states can be mapped into each other by a sequence of single-qubit Pauli errors such that the energy of all intermediate states is upper bounded by a constant independent of the lattice size L . The same result holds if there are unused logical qubits that are treated as 'gauge qubits'. It demonstrates that a self-correcting quantum memory cannot be built using stabilizer codes in dimensions D =1, 2. This result is in sharp contrast with the existence of a classical self-correcting memory in the form of a two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnet. Our results leave open the possibility for a self-correcting quantum memory based on 2D subsystem codes or on 3D subspace or subsystem codes.
We describe a general method for turning quantum circuits into sparse quantum subsystem codes. The idea is to turn each circuit element into a set of low-weight gauge generators that enforce the input-output relations of that circuit element. Using this prescription, we can map an arbitrary stabilizer code into a new subsystem code with the same distance and number of encoded qubits but where all the generators have constant weight, at the cost of adding some ancilla qubits. With an additional overhead of ancilla qubits, the new code can also be made spatially local. Applying our construction to certain concatenated stabilizer codes yields families of subsystem codes with constant weight generators and with minimum distance d = n1-∈, where E = O(1/√log n). For spatially local codes in D dimensions, we nearly saturate a bound due to Bravyi and Terhal and achieve d = n1-∈-1/D. Previously the best code distance achievable with constant-weight generators in any dimension, due to Freedman, Meyer, and Luo, was O(√n log n) for a stabilizer code.
We ask whether there are fundamental limits on storing quantum information reliably in a bounded volume of space. To investigate this question, we study quantum error correcting codes specified by geometrically local commuting constraints on a 2D lattice of finite-dimensional quantum particles. For these 2D systems, we derive a tradeoff between the number of encoded qubits k, the distance of the code d, and the number of particles n. It is shown that kd2= O(n) where the coefficient in O(n) depends only on the locality of the constraints and dimension of the Hilbert spaces describing individual particles. We show that the analogous tradeoff for the classical information storage is k(√d) = O(n).
Building fault-tolerant quantum computers is a current priority for the quantum computing industry and academic counterparts. We present a quantum error correction code encoding a single logical qubit into n=L2n=L^2n=L2 physical qubits with distance d=Ld = Ld=L as a subsystem code, and n−O(n)n-O(\sqrt{n})n−O(n​) logical qubits with distance d=3d=3d=3 as a standard stabiliser code. The logical single-qubit gates in the subsystem code are transversal. Under independent X,ZX,ZX,Z noise we find a threshold of 1.4%±0.1%1.4\% \pm 0.1\%1.4%±0.1% for odd distance and 1.8%±0.2%1.8\% \pm 0.2\%1.8%±0.2% for even distance for the subsystem variant. The code detects every 1- and 2-qubit error, and additionally every error of weight 3 and higher (constrained by the distance) that is not a product of the 3-qubit check operations. These operations act on the gauge qubits leaving the subsystem code space invariant. The code can be implemented by qubits in a triangular configuration with the plaquettes as 3-qubit check operations.
We introduce a family of two-dimensional (2D) topological subsystem quantum error-correcting codes. The gauge group is generated by two-local Pauli operators, so that two-local measurements are enough to recover the error syndrome. We study the computational power of code deformation in these codes and show that boundaries cannot be introduced in the usual way. In addition, we give a general mapping connecting suitable classical statistical mechanical models to optimal error correction in subsystem stabilizer codes that suffer from depolarizing noise.