We present a planar surface-code-based scheme for fault-tolerant quantum computation which eliminates the time overhead of single-qubit Clifford gates, and implements long-range multi-target CNOT gates with a time overhead that scales only logarithmically with the control-target separation. This is done by replacing hardware operations for single-qubit Clifford gates with a classical tracking protocol. Inter-qubit communication is added via a modified lattice surgery protocol that employs twist defects of the surface code. The long-range multi-target CNOT gates facilitate magic state distillation, which renders our scheme fault-tolerant and universal.
We present a planar surface-code-based scheme for fault-tolerant quantum computation which eliminates the time overhead of single-qubit Clifford gates, and implements long-range multi-target CNOT gates with a time overhead that scales only logarithmically with the control-target separation. This is done by replacing hardware operations for single-qubit Clifford gates with a classical tracking protocol. Inter-qubit communication is added via a modified lattice surgery protocol that employs twist defects of the surface code. The long-range multi-target CNOT gates facilitate magic state distillation, which renders our scheme fault-tolerant and universal.
We present a planar surface-code-based scheme for fault-tolerant quantum computation which eliminates the time overhead of single-qubit Clifford gates, and implements long-range multi-target CNOT gates with a time overhead that scales only logarithmically with the control-target separation. This is done by replacing hardware operations for single-qubit Clifford gates with a classical tracking protocol. Inter-qubit communication is added via a modified lattice surgery protocol that employs twist defects of the surface code. The long-range multi-target CNOT gates facilitate magic state distillation, which renders our scheme fault-tolerant and universal.
The surface code is one of the most successful approaches to topological quantum error-correction. It boasts the smallest known syndrome extraction circuits and correspondingly largest thresholds. Defect-based logical encodings of a new variety called twists have made it possible to implement the full Clifford group without state distillation. Here we investigate a patch-based encoding involving a modified twist. In our modified formulation, the resulting codes, called triangle codes for the shape of their planar layout, have only weight-four checks and relatively simple syndrome extraction circuits that maintain a high, near surface-code-level threshold. They also use 25% fewer physical qubits per logical qubit than the surface code. Moreover, benefiting from the twist, we can implement all Clifford gates by lattice surgery without the need for state distillation. By a surgical transformation to the surface code, we also develop a scheme of doing all Clifford gates on surface code patches in an atypical planar layout, though with less qubit efficiency than the triangle code. Finally, we remark that logical qubits encoded in triangle codes are naturally amenable to logical tomography, and the smallest triangle code can demonstrate high-pseudothreshold fault-tolerance to depolarizing noise using just 13 physical qubits.
Fault-tolerant quantum computation requires logical operations that manipulate encoded information while preserving quantum error-correction protection. In planar surface-code architectures, code deformation and lattice surgery provide a local, measurement-based route to such operations. Here we experimentally realize key elements of patch-based surface-code logical processing on a 107-qubit superconducting quantum processor. We first implement a reusable primitive layer comprising merge and split, patch expansion and shrinkage, and deformations mediated by domain walls and twist defects. We then compose these primitives to realize logical state routing, the logical controlled-NOT gate, and the single-qubit Hadamard and phase gates, which together form a Clifford-generating set. All operations are implemented on distance-three rotated surface-code patches with multi-round syndrome extraction and neural-network decoding, without post-selection. Our results advance superconducting surface-code experiments from protected logical memory to active, patch-based fault-tolerant logical operations.
In universal fault-tolerant quantum computing, implementing logical non-Clifford gates often demands substantial spacetime resources for many error-correcting codes, including the high-threshold surface code. A critical mission for realizing large-scale quantum computing is to develop simple and resource-efficient implementations of logical non-Clifford gates. We propose a novel way of implementing non-Clifford operations in the standard surface code based on hybrid lattice surgery. First we generalize the standard lattice surgery to hybrid lattice surgery, where operations of rough merge and rough split happen across different topological codes. Then we apply such procedures between Abelian and non-Abelian codes and show that this can provide non-Clifford operations in the standard surface code, in the form of a magic state or a non-Clifford gate teleportation. Complementing this, we provide a continuum topological field theory description of this hybrid lattice surgery utilizing interfaces between (2+1)d topological orders. From these considerations, we can generalize our protocol to non-Clifford gates and magic states at all finite levels of the Clifford hierarchy, as well as gates beyond the hierarchy. We also discuss protocols extending this framework to qutrits.
Qubit shuttling has become an indispensable ingredient for scaling leading quantum computing platforms, including semiconductor spin, neutral-atom, and trapped-ion qubits, enabling both crosstalk reduction and tighter integration of control hardware. Cai et al. (2023) proposed a scalable architecture that employs short-range shuttling to realize effective three-dimensional connectivity on a strictly two-dimensional device. Building on recent advances in quantum error correction, we show that this architecture enables the native implementation of folded surface codes on 2D hardware, reducing the runtime of all single-qubit logical Clifford gates and logical CNOTs within subsets of qubits from O(d) in conventional surface code lattice surgery to constant time. We present explicit protocols for these operations and demonstrate that access to a transversal S gate reduces the spacetime volume of 8T-to-CCZ magic-state distillation by more than an order of magnitude compared with standard 2D lattice surgery approaches. Finally, we introduce a new "virtual-stack" layout that more efficiently exploits the quasi-three-dimensional structure of the architecture, enabling efficient multilayer routing on these two-dimensional devices.
Abstract. In recent years, surface codes have become the preferred method for quantum error correction in large scale computational and communications architectures. Their comparatively high fault-tolerant thresholds and their natural 2-dimensional nearest neighbour (2DNN) structure make them an obvious choice for large scale designs in experimentally realistic systems. While fundamentally based on the toric code of Kitaev, there are many variants, two of which are the planar-and defect- based codes. Planar codes require fewer qubits to implement (for the same strength of error correction), but are restricted to encoding a single qubit of information. Interactions between encoded qubits are achieved via transversal operations, thus destroying the inherent 2DNN nature of the code. In this paper we introduce a new technique enabling the coupling of two planar codes without transversal operations, maintaining the 2DNN of the encoded computer. Our lattice surgery technique comprises splitting and merging planar code surfaces, and enables us to perform universal quantum computation (including magic state injection) while removing the need for braided logic in a strictly 2DNN design, and hence reduces the overall qubit resources for logic operations. We show how lattice surgery allows us to distribute encoded GHZ states in a more direct (and overhead friendly) manner, and how a demonstration of an encoded CNOT between two distance 3 logical states is possible with 53 physical qubits, half of that required in any other known construction in 2D. ar