Given a classical error-correcting block code, the task of quantum list decoding is to produce from any quantumly corrupted codeword a short list containing all messages whose codewords exhibit high "presence" in the quantumly corrupted codeword.Efficient quantum list decoders have been used to prove a quantum hardcore property of classical codes.However, the code rates of all known families of efficiently quantum list-decodable codes are, unfortunately, too small for other practical applications.To improve those known code rates, we prove that a specific code family of polynomially small code rate over a fixed code alphabet, obtained by concatenating generalized Reed-Solomon codes as outer codes with Hadamard codes as inner codes, has an efficient quantum list-decoding algorithm if its codewords have relatively high codeword presence in a given quantumly corrupted codeword.As an immediate application, we use the quantum list decodability of this code family to solve a certain form of quantum search problems in polynomial time.When the codeword presence becomes smaller, in contrast, we show that the quantum list decodability of generalized Reed-Solomon codes with high confidence is closely related to the efficient solvability of the following two problems: the noisy polynomial interpolation problem and the bounded distance vector problem.Moreover, assuming that NP BQP, we also prove that no efficient quantum list decoder exists for the generalized Reed-Solomon codes.
Given a classical error-correcting block code, the task of quantum list decoding is to produce from any quantumly corrupted codeword a short list containing all messages whose codewords exhibit high "presence" in the quantumly corrupted codeword.Efficient quantum list decoders have been used to prove a quantum hardcore property of classical codes.However, the code rates of all known families of efficiently quantum list-decodable codes are, unfortunately, too small for other practical applications.To improve those known code rates, we prove that a specific code family of polynomially small code rate over a fixed code alphabet, obtained by concatenating generalized Reed-Solomon codes as outer codes with Hadamard codes as inner codes, has an efficient quantum list-decoding algorithm if its codewords have relatively high codeword presence in a given quantumly corrupted codeword.As an immediate application, we use the quantum list decodability of this code family to solve a certain form of quantum search problems in polynomial time.When the codeword presence becomes smaller, in contrast, we show that the quantum list decodability of generalized Reed-Solomon codes with high confidence is closely related to the efficient solvability of the following two problems: the noisy polynomial interpolation problem and the bounded distance vector problem.Moreover, assuming that NP BQP, we also prove that no efficient quantum list decoder exists for the generalized Reed-Solomon codes.
A family of quantum codes of increasing block length with positive rate is asymptotically good if the ratio of its distance to its block length approaches a positive constant. The asymptotic quantum Gilbert-Varshamov (GV) bound states that there exist q -ary quantum codes of sufficiently long block length N having fixed rate R with distance at least NH-1((1-R)/2), where Hq2is the q2-ary entropy function. For q<;7 , only random quantum codes are known to asymptotically attain the quantum GV bound. However, random codes have little structure. In this paper, we generalize the classical result of Thommesen to the quantum case, thereby demonstrating the existence of concatenated quantum codes that can asymptotically attain the quantum GV bound. The outer codes are quantum generalized Reed-Solomon codes, and the inner codes are random independently chosen stabilizer codes, where the rates of the inner and outer codes lie in a specified feasible region.
One of the founding results of lattice based cryptography is a quantum reduction from the Short Integer Solution problem to the Learning with Errors problem introduced by Regev. It has recently been pointed out by Chen, Liu and Zhandry that this reduction can be made more powerful by replacing the learning with errors problem with a quantum equivalent, where the errors are given in quantum superposition. In the context of codes, this can be adapted to a reduction from finding short codewords to a quantum decoding problem for random linear codes. We therefore consider in this paper the quantum decoding problem, where we are given a superposition of noisy versions of a codeword and we want to recover the corresponding codeword. When we measure the superposition, we get back the usual classical decoding problem for which the best known algorithms are in the constant rate and error-rate regime exponential in the codelength. However, we will show here that when the noise rate is small enough, then the quantum decoding problem can be solved in quantum polynomial time. Moreover, we also show that the problem can in principle be solved quantumly (albeit not efficiently) for noise rates for which the associated classical decoding problem cannot be solved at all for information theoretic reasons. We then revisit Regev's reduction in the context of codes. We show that using our algorithms for the quantum decoding problem in Regev's reduction matches the best known quantum algorithms for the short codeword problem. This shows in some sense the tightness of Regev's reduction when considering the quantum decoding problem and also paves the way for new quantum algorithms for the short codeword problem.
Folded Reed-Solomon codes, introduced by Guruswami and Rudra in 2007, have been shown to achieve the information-theoretically best possible trade-off between the rate of a code and the error-correction radius. In 2024, Bergamaschi, Golowich and Gunn extended this framework by constructing folded quantum Reed-Solomon codes (CSS codes obtained by folding) demonstrating that these codes tolerate errors up to the quantum Singleton bound. In this paper, we construct folded quantum Hermitian codes using the CSS framework and show that these codes are also list-decodable, tolerating errors up to the quantum Singleton bound. Compared to Reed-Solomon codes, Hermitian codes admit comparable lengths over smaller alphabets, enabling more efficient implementations.
In classical coding theory, the quest for explicit codes achieving list decoding capacity has been an important driving force. While random codes are easily shown to achieve capacity, an explicit construction was only discovered decades later in the seminal work [Guruswami and Rudra, STOC 2006]. In quantum coding theory, it is highly desirable that a code family be LDPC. While good quantum codes were known for decades, obtaining the additional LDPC property was elusive. In fact, only very recently that good quantum LDPC codes were discovered in a breakthrough work [Panteleev and Kalachev, STOC 2022].
In this context, a natural question is to ask for an explicit family of quantum codes achieving list decoding capacity while also possessing the important LDPC property. In this work, we provide (to the best of our knowledge) the first explicit constructions of quantum LDPC codes achieving list decoding capacity, namely, with a list decoding radius approaching the quantum Singleton bound with constant list sizes. Furthermore, we provide near-linear time (in the block-length) list decoding algorithms approaching capacity.
Our explicit code construction are based on expander graphs via the quantum analogue of Alon-Edmonds-Luby (AEL) amplification [Bergamaschi, Golowich and Gunn, STOC 2024], and this enables the important LDPC property. Our efficient list decoding algorithms are obtained by generalizing the classical expander-based weak-regularity list decoding algorithms [Srivastava and Tulsiani, FOCS 2025] [Jeronimo and Singh, 2025] to suitable instantiations of quantum AEL.
We give a construction of Quantum Low-Density Parity Check (QLDPC) codes with near-optimal rate-distance tradeoff and efficient list decoding up to the Johnson bound in polynomial time. Previous constructions of list decodable good distance quantum codes either required access to a classical side channel or were based on algebraic constructions that preclude the LDPC property. Our construction relies on new algorithmic results for codes obtained via the quantum analog of the distance amplification scheme of Alon, Edmonds, and Luby [FOCS 1995]. These results are based on convex relaxations obtained using the Sum-of-Squares hierarchy, which reduce the problem of list decoding the distance amplified codes to unique decoding the starting base codes. Choosing these base codes to be the recent breakthrough constructions of good QLDPC codes with efficient unique decoders, we get efficiently list decodable QLDPC codes.
Different quantum error correction schemes trade off overhead, error suppression, and hardware connectivity. Code concatenation can relax these tradeoffs by using an outer code whose non-local connectivity is supplied by logical operations of an inner code rather than directly by hardware. Prior works showed that this can reduce memory overhead for local low-rate inner codes such as the surface code. Here, we study concatenation over non-local, high-rate inner codes. Such inner codes experience correlated errors among the many logical qubits in a single codeblock. We handle this by treating each block as a single logical Galois qudit, enabling concatenation with algebraic outer codes with excellent parameters and, crucially, list decoders. In particular, we consider a memory system formed by concatenating quantum Reed-Solomon outer codes over the gross code. For fault-tolerant syndrome extraction, we develop a Galois qudit Shor scheme using "time-like" Reed-Solomon protection against measurement errors. Interestingly, a lightweight fault tolerance scheme, that would fail for qubits, works well for large-alphabet qudits, suggesting a very different theory of fault tolerance for such qudits. The whole protocol is optimised via improved bicycle instruction logical error rates, novel compilation strategies, and recent decoder post-selection rules. At uniform 10−3 physical noise, the concatenated gross code reaches the teraquop regime, which it previously could not access, with a lower space overhead than the 288-qubit two-gross code, while offering several advantages from the engineering standpoint. Beyond our main case study, we believe the core ideas of Galois qudits, quantum Reed-Solomon outer codes, and list decoding, will prove generically powerful and highly transferable ideas across high-rate quantum architectures.