We use a map to quantum error-correcting codes and a subspace projection to get lower bounds for minimal homological distances in a tensor product of two chain complexes of vector spaces over a finite field. Homology groups of such a complex are described by the K\"unneth theorem. We give an explicit expression for the distances when one of the complexes is a linear map between two spaces. The codes in the construction, subsystem product codes and their gauge-fixed variants, generalize several known families of quantum error-correcting codes.
Homological quantum error correction uses tools of algebraic topology and homological algebra to derive Calderbank-Shor-Steane quantum error correcting codes from cellulations of topological spaces. This work is an exploration of the relevant topics, a journey from classical error correction, through homology theory, to CSS codes acting on qudit systems. Qudit codes have torsion in their logical spaces. This is interesting to study because it gives us extra logical qudits, of possibly different dimension. Apart from examples and comments on the topic, we prove an original result, the Structure Theorem for the Qudit Logical Space, an application of the Universal Coefficient Theorem from homological algebra, which gives us information about the logical space when torsion is involved, and that improves on a previous result in the literature. Furthermore, this work introduces our own abstracted and restricted version of the general notion of a cell complex, suited exactly to our needs.
Error-correcting codes for quantum computing are crucial to address the fundamental problem of communication in the presence of noise and imperfections. Audoux used Khovanov homology to define families of quantum error-correcting codes with desirable properties. We explore Khovanov homology and some of its many extensions, namely reduced, annular, and sl3 homology, to generate new families of quantum codes and to establish several properties about codes that arise in this way, such as behavior of distance under Reidemeister moves or connected sums.