We describe a scheme for quantum error correction that employs feedback and weak measurement. This provides a method of protecting an unknown quantum state against errors that does not use the standard tools of quantum error correction – projective measurements and fast controlled unitary gates – and is practicably implementable because of the little side processing required. We evaluate the performance of our scheme by simulating a simple scenario of protection against bit-flips.
We describe a scheme for quantum error correction that employs feedback and weak measurement. This provides a method of protecting an unknown quantum state against errors that does not use the standard tools of quantum error correction – projective measurements and fast controlled unitary gates – and is practicably implementable because of the little side processing required. We evaluate the performance of our scheme by simulating a simple scenario of protection against bit-flips.
We describe a scheme for quantum-error correction that employs feedback and weak measurement rather than the standard tools of projective measurement and fast controlled unitary gates. The advantage of this scheme over previous protocols [for example, Ahn et al. Phys. Rev. A 65, 042301 (2001)], is that it requires little side processing while remaining robust to measurement inefficiency, and is therefore considerably more practical. We evaluate the performance of our scheme by simulating the correction of bit flips. We also consider implementation in a solid-state quantum-computation architecture and estimate the maximal error rate that could be corrected with current technology.
We describe a protocol for continuously protecting unknown quantum states from decoherence that incorporates design principles from both quantum error correction and quantum feedback control. Our protocol uses continuous measurements and Hamiltonian operations, which are weaker control tools than are typically assumed for quantum error correction. We develop a cost function appropriate for unknown quantum states and use it to optimize our state-estimate feedback. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we study our protocol for the three-qubit bit-flip code in detail and demonstrate that it can improve the fidelity of quantum states beyond what is achievable using quantum error correction when the time between quantum error-correction cycles is limited.
We show that quantum feedback control can be used as a quantum-error-correction process for errors induced by a weak continuous measurement. In particular, when the error model is restricted to one, perfectly measured, error channel per physical qubit, quantum feedback can act to perfectly protect a stabilizer codespace. Using the stabilizer formalism we derive an explicit scheme, involving feedback and an additional constant Hamiltonian, to protect an $(n\ensuremath{-}1)$-qubit logical state encoded in n physical qubits. This works for both Poisson (jump) and white-noise (diffusion) measurement processes. Universal quantum computation is also possible in this scheme. As an example, we show that detected-spontaneous emission error correction with a driving Hamiltonian can greatly reduce the amount of redundancy required to protect a state from that which has been previously postulated [e.g., Alber et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4402 (2001)].
We show that quantum feedback control can be used as a quantum error correction process for errors induced by weak continuous measurement. In particular, when the error model is restricted to one, perfectly measured, error channel per physical qubit, quantum feedback can act to perfectly protect a stabilizer codespace. Using the stabilizer formalism we derive an explicit scheme, involving feedback and an additional constant Hamiltonian, to protect art (n-1)-qubit logical state encoded in n physical qubits. This works for both Poisson (jump) and white-noise (diffusion) measurement processes. As an example, we show that detected-spontaneous emission error correction with a driving Hamiltonian can greatly reduce the amount of redundancy required to protect a state from that which has been previously postulated.
Quantum mechanical applications range from quantum computers to quantum key distribution to teleportation. In these applications, quantum error correction is extremely important for protecting quantum states against decoherence. Here I present two main results regarding quantum error correction protocols.
The first main topic I address is the development of continuous-time quantum error correction protocols via combination with techniques from quantum control. These protocols rely on weak measurement and Hamiltonian feedback instead of the projective measurements and unitary gates usually assumed by canonical quantum error correction. I show that a subclass of these protocols can be understood as a quantum feedback protocol, and analytically analyze the general case using the stabilizer formalism; I show that in this case perfect feedback can perfectly protect a stabilizer subspace. I also show through numerical simulations that another subclass of these protocols does better than canonical quantum error correction when the time between corrections is limited.
The second main topic is development of improved overhead results for fault-tolerant computation. In particular, through analysis of topological quantum error correcting codes, it will be shown that the required blowup in depth of a noisy circuit performing a fault-tolerant computation can be reduced to a factor of O(log log L), an improvement over previous results. Showing this requires investigation into a local method of performing fault-tolerant correction on a topological code of arbitrary dimension.
The advance of experimental techniques in circuit quantum electrodynamics over last decadehas made it possible to monitor the evolution of qubits under continuous measurements in\nreal time . This kind of measurements, as compared to the discrete ones, provides a stream\nof information for feedback to alter the system's quantum dynamics continuously in a desired\nmanner, thus allowing broader possibilities. We obtain the information at a cost, the backaction on the states. However, the back-action turns out not to be just something disturbing \nand harmful to the control but instead can be harnessed, together with the control, to steer the system to our targets. \nThis thesis discusses one such application, namely to use measurements to create entanglement from remote qubits under locally optimal control. It is illustrated that by carefully designing symmetric measurement and feedback operators, we can construct efficient Markovian or non-Markovian protocols which generate N-qubit W,\ngeneral Dicke and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states with high fidelity above 94% up to\nN = 100. In some cases, the fidelity even approaches unity. Following that, we describe how\nto take advantages of the continuous stream of information to protect the unitary dynamics of\na quantum system subject to noises. We develop a practical protocol for continuous operation\nof a quantum error correcting code for protection of coherent evolution due to an encoded\nHamiltonian against environmental errors, using the three qubit bit-flip code and bit-flip\nerrors as a canonical example. We demonstrate, for both quantum memory and adiabatic\nHamiltonians, that the protocol, once optimized, can significantly reduce logical errors with\na performance which is close to the theoretical limit of the bit-flip code's capability. In the\nadiabatic Hamiltonian case, we also propose some novel correction operators instead of the\nconventional ones to further reduce the logical errors.