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Physical Review Letters

Error Correcting Codes in Quantum Theory

Andrew M. Steane

Published Jul 29, 1996• 2,665 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A new type of uncertainty relation is presented, concerning the information-bearing properties of a discrete quantum system. A natural link is then revealed between basic quantum theory and the linear error correcting codes of classical information theory. A subset of the known codes is described, having properties which are important for error correction in quantum communication. It is shown that a pair of states which are, in a certain sense, "macroscopically different," can form a superposition in which the interference phase between the two parts is measurable. This provides a highly stabilized "Schrödinger cat" state.Received 4 October 1995DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.793©1996 American Physical Society

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.77.793

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It is shown that encoding the state of a quantum computer (or other quantum information-processing device) for error correction has the effect of making its operating states macroscopically indistinguishable; all the more, the more ``stable'' the code is, that is, the more errors it can correct in each pass. It is also shown that for nondegenerate codes the expectation values of macroscopic observables in such encoded states are identical to those that would be obtained for a totally mixed state of maximum entropy, where again the degree of indistinguishability increases with the number of errors corrected by the code. The results can be used to estimate the decoherence rates for systems of qubits under certain forms of interaction with the environment: it is found that when the qubits are encoded all coherent superpositions decay, to lowest order, at the same rate, which scales more slowly with the number of physical qubits than the decoherence rate for macroscopic coherent superpositions (``Schr\"odinger cats'') of the bare qubits.
Abstract: Quantum Error Correction will be necessary for preserving coherent states against noise and other unwanted interactions in quantum computation and communication. We develop a general theory of quantum error correction based on encoding states into larger Hilbert spaces subject to known interactions. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect recovery of an encoded state after its degradation by an interaction. The conditions depend only on the behavior of the logical states. We use them to give a recovery operator independent definition of error-correcting codes. We relate this definition to four others: The existence of a left inverse of the interaction, an explicit representation of the error syndrome using tensor products, perfect recovery of the completely entangled state and an information theoretic identity. Two notions of fidelity and error for imperfect recovery are introduced, one for pure and the other for entangled states. The latter is more appropriate when using codes in a quantum memory or in applications of quantum teleportation to communication. We show that the error for entangled states is bounded linearly by the error for pure states. A formal definition of independent interactions for qubits is given. This leads to lower bounds on the number of qubits required to correct errors and a formal proof that the classical bounds on the probability of errorcorrecting codes applies to error correcting quantum codes, provided that the interaction is dominated by an identity component.
Quantum error correction will be necessary for preserving coherent states against noise and other unwanted interactions in quantum computation and communication. We develop a general theory of quantum error correction based on encoding states into larger Hilbert spaces subject to known interactions. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect recovery of an encoded state after its degradation by an interaction. The conditions depend only on the behavior of the logical states. We use them to give a recovery-operator-independent definition of error-correcting codes. We relate this definition to four others: the existence of a left inverse of the interaction, an explicit representation of the error syndrome using tensor products, perfect recovery of the completely entangled state, and an information theoretic identity. Two notions of fidelity and error for imperfect recovery are introduced, one for pure and the other for entangled states. The latter is more appropriate when using codes in a quantum memory or in applications of quantum teleportation to communication. We show that the error for entangled states is bounded linearly by the error for pure states. A formal definition of independent interactions for qubits is given. This leads to lower bounds on the number of qubits required to correct e errors and a formal proof that the classical bounds on the probability of error of e-error-correcting codes applies to e-error-correcting quantum codes, provided that the interaction is dominated by an identity component.