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Universal Fault Tolerant Quantum Computation on a Class of Decoherence-Free Subspaces Without Spatial Symmetry

Daniel A. Lidar, Bacon, D J, Julia Kempe, K. Birgitta Whaley

Published Jan 1, 2001• 1 citation
OpenAlex

Abstract

Decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs) are constructed without the assumption of spatially symmetric system-bath coupling. Instead the underlying assumption is that subgroups of the full Pauli group of errors are responsible for the decoherence. The corresponding decoherence-free states can protect quantum information in the presence of multiple-qubit errors, and are stabilizer codes. It is shown how to perform universal fault tolerant quantum computation on this class of DFSs. This is the first demonstration that it is possible to use only one- and two-body quantum gates to perform full-blown quantum computation on a class of DFSs, with a finite number of measurements.

Related papers

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Decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs) are constructed without the assumption of spatially symmetric system-bath coupling. Instead the underlying assumption is that subgroups of the full Pauli group of errors are responsible for the decoherence. The corresponding decoherence-free states can protect quantum information in the presence of multiple-qubit errors, and are stabilizer codes. It is shown how to perform universal fault tolerant quantum computation on this class of DFSs. This is the first demonstration that it is possible to use only one- and two-body quantum gates to perform full-blown quantum computation on a class of DFSs, with a finite number of measurements.
Decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs) shield quantum information from errors induced by the interaction with an uncontrollable environment. Here we study a model of correlated errors forming an Abelian subgroup (stabilizer) of the Pauli group (the group of tensor products of Pauli matrices). Unlike previous studies of DFSs, this type of error does not involve any spatial symmetry assumptions on the system-environment interaction. We solve the problem of universal, fault-tolerant quantum computation on the associated class of DFSs. We do so by introducing a hybrid DFS quantum error-correcting-code approach, where errors that arise due to departure of the codewords from the DFS are corrected actively.
Universal quantum computation on decoherence-free subspaces and subsystems (DFSs) is examined with particular emphasis on using only physically relevant interactions. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of decoherence-free (noiseless) subsystems in the Markovian regime is derived here for the first time. A stabilizer formalism for DFSs is then developed which allows for the explicit understanding of these in their dual role as quantum error correcting codes. Conditions for the existence of Hamiltonians whose induced evolution always preserves a DFS are derived within this stabilizer formalism. Two possible collective decoherence mechanisms arising from permutation symmetries of the system-bath coupling are examined within this framework. It is shown that in both cases universal quantum computation which always preserves the DFS (natural fault-tolerant computation) can be performed using only two-body interactions. This is in marked contrast to standard error correcting codes, where all known constructions using one- or two-body interactions must leave the code space during the on-time of the fault-tolerant gates. A further consequence of our universality construction is that a single exchange Hamiltonian can be used to perform universal quantum computation on an encoded space whose asymptotic coding efficiency is unity. The exchange Hamiltonian, which is naturally present in many quantum systems, is thus asymptotically universal.
A general scheme to perform universal, fault-tolerant quantum computation within decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs) is presented. At most two-qubit interactions are required, and the system remains within the DFS throughout the entire implementation of a quantum gate. We show explicitly how to perform universal computation on clusters of the four-qubit DFS encoding one logical qubit each under spatially symmetric (collective) decoherence. Our results have immediate relevance to quantum computer implementations in which quantum logic is implemented through exchange interactions, such as the recently proposed spin-spin coupled quantum dot arrays and donor-atom arrays.
In quantum computing, nice error bases as generalization of the Pauli basis were introduced by Knill. These bases are known to be projective representations of finite groups. In this paper, we propose a group representation approach to the study of quantum stabilizer codes. We utilize this approach to define decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs). Unlike previous studies of DFSs, this type of DFSs does not involve any spatial symmetry assumptions on the system-environment interaction. Thus, it can be used to construct quantum error-avoiding codes (QEACs) that are fault tolerant automatically. We also propose a new simple construction of QEACs and subsequently develop several classes of QEACs. Finally, we present numerical simulation results encoding the logical error rate over physical error rate on the fidelity performance of these QEACs. Our study demonstrates that DFSs-based QEACs are capable of providing a generalized and unified framework for error-avoiding methods.
Coherence in an open quantum system is degraded through its interaction with a bath. This decoherence can be avoided by restricting the dynamics of the system to special decoherence-free subspaces. These subspaces are usually constructed under the assumption of spatially symmetric system-bath coupling. Here we show that decoherence-free subspaces may appear without spatial symmetry. Instead, we consider a model of system-bath interactions in which to first order only multiple-qubit coupling to the bath is present, with single-qubit system-bath coupling absent. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the appearance of decoherence-free states in this model, and give a number of examples. In a sequel paper we show how to perform universal and fault tolerant quantum computation on the decoherence-free subspaces considered in this paper.
We present a universal fault-tolerant quantum computing architecture based on identical particle qubits (IPQs), where we find that the first-order IPQ - bath interaction fundamentally differs from the conventional first-order qubit-bath interaction. This key distinction necessitates a redesign of existing strategies to fight decoherence. We propose that the simplest quantum error correction code can be realized directly within the physical qubit, provided that conventional correction and restoration are generalized beyond unitary operations to employ physically implementable reversal operations -- naturally placing logical and physical qubits on equal footing. We further demonstrate that dynamical decoupling (DD) remains effective within this unified framework, and that a decoherence-free subspace (DFS) -- like structure emerges. Unlike previous approximate treatments, our analytically solvable IPQ-Bath model enables rigorous testing of these strategies, with numerical simulations validating their effectiveness.