In this paper, we tackle the channel estimation problem for Pauli channels. Online estimation methods for the depolarizing channel have been proposed in previous literature. However, realistic quantum devices often exhibit an asymmetric behaviour not captured by the symmetric depolarizing model, implying that the estimation method used by Quantum Turbo Codes (QTC) should exploit such asymmetry for the error correcting operations to be successful. Consequently, we propose an online iterative method that aids in successfully estimating each of the individual error probabilities associated with the Pauli channel, ultimately increasing the probability of correct decoding. The benefits this method provides come at the expense of an increase in the decoding complexity.
In this paper, we tackle the channel estimation problem for Pauli channels. Online estimation methods for the depolarizing channel have been proposed in previous literature. However, realistic quantum devices often exhibit an asymmetric behaviour not captured by the symmetric depolarizing model, implying that the estimation method used by Quantum Turbo Codes (QTC) should exploit such asymmetry for the error correcting operations to be successful. Consequently, we propose an online iterative method that aids in successfully estimating each of the individual error probabilities associated with the Pauli channel, ultimately increasing the probability of correct decoding. The benefits this method provides come at the expense of an increase in the decoding complexity.
Quantum turbo codes (QTC) have shown excellent error correction capabilities in the setting of quantum communication, achieving a performance less than 1 dB away from their corresponding hashing bounds. Decoding for QTCs typically assumes that perfect knowledge about the channel is available at the decoder. However, in realistic systems, such information must be estimated, and thus, there exists a mismatch between the true channel information and the estimated one. In this article, we first heuristically study the sensitivity of QTCs to such mismatch. Then, existing estimation protocols for the depolarizing channel are presented and applied in an off-line manner to provide bounds on how the use of off-line estimation techniques affects the error correction capabilities of QTCs. Finally, we present an on-line estimation method for the depolarizing probability, which, different from off-line estimation techniques, neither requires extra qubits, nor increases the latency. The application of the proposed method results in a performance similar to that obtained with QTCs using perfect channel information, while requiring less stringent conditions on the variability of the channel than off-line estimation techniques.
Inspired by the success of classical turbo codes, quantum turbo codes (QTCs) have also been conceived for near-hashing-bound transmission of quantum information over memoryless quantum channels. However, in real physical situations, the memoryless channel assumption may not be well justified, since the channel often exhibits memory of previous error events. Here, we investigate the performance of QTCs over depolarizing channels exhibiting memory and we show that they suffer from a performance degradation at low depolarizing probability values. In order to circumvent the performance degradation issue, we conceive a new coding scheme termed quantum turbo coding scheme exploiting error-correlation (QTC-EEC) that is capable of utilizing the error-correlation while performing the iterative decoding at the receiver. The proposed QTC-EEC can achieve convergence threshold at a higher depolarizing probability for channels with a higher value of correlation parameter and achieve performance near to the capacity. Finally, we propose a joint decoding and estimation scheme for our QTC-EEC relying on the correlation estimation (QTC-EEC-E) designed for more realistic quantum systems with unknown correlation parameter. Simulation results reveal that the proposed QTC-EEC-E can achieve the same performance as that of the ideal system of known correlation parameter and hence demonstrate the accurate estimation of the proposed QTC-EEC-E.
Quantum cryptography via key distribution mechanisms that utilize quantum entanglement between sender-receiver pairs will form the basis of future large-scale quantum networks. A key engineering challenge in such networks will be the ability to correct for decoherence effects in the distributed entanglement resources. It is widely believed that sophisticated quantum error correction codes, such as quantum low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, will be pivotal in such a role. However, recently the importance of the channel mismatch effect in degrading the performance of deployed quantum LDPC codes has been pointed out. In this work we help remedy this situation by proposing new quantum LDPC decoding strategies that can significantly reduce performance degradation by as much as 50%. Our new strategies for the quantum LDPC decoder are based on previous insights from classical LDPC decoders in mismatched channels, where an asymmetry in performance is known as a function of the estimated channel noise. We show how similar asymmetries carry over to the quantum depolarizing channel, and how an estimate of the depolarization flip parameter weighted to larger values leads to significant performance improvement.
Pauli channels are ubiquitous in quantum information, both as a dominant noise source in many computing architectures and as a practical model for analyzing error correction and fault tolerance. Here, we prove several results on efficiently learning Pauli channels and more generally the Pauli projection of a quantum channel. We first derive a procedure for learning a Pauli channel on n qubits with high probability to a relative precision ϵ using O (ϵ -2 n2 n ) measurements, which is efficient in the Hilbert space dimension. The estimate is robust to state preparation and measurement errors, which, together with the relative precision, makes it especially appropriate for applications involving characterization of high-accuracy quantum gates. Next, we show that the error rates for an arbitrary set of s Pauli errors can be estimated to a relative precision ϵ using O (ϵ -4 log s log s/ϵ) measurements. Finally, we show that when the Pauli channel is given by a Markov field with at most k -local correlations, we can learn an entire n -qubit Pauli channel to relative precision ϵ with only O k (ϵ -2 n 2 log n ) measurements, which is efficient in the number of qubits. These results enable a host of applications beyond just characterizing noise in a large-scale quantum system: they pave the way to tailoring quantum codes, optimizing decoders, and customizing fault tolerance procedures to suit a particular device.
In this paper, a feedback sum-product decoding algorithm of sparse quantum codes for X-Z Pauli channels is developed. Compared with the previous decoding algorithm, our feedback strategy exploits not just the syndrome but also the values of the frustrated checks on individual qubits of the code and the character of the channel model with the portion of each error to adjust the probability distribution of information nodes. Due to the smart adjustment, our decoding algorithm, on one hand, can break the symmetric degeneracy, and on the other hand, can feed back more useful information to the SPA decoder to help the decoder determine a valid output, thereby significantly improving the decoding ability of the decoder. Moreover, our algorithm, which is based on GF(4), overcomes the limitation caused by decoding in GF(2). Finally, we want to point out that, our method does not increase the measurement overhead in comparison wioth the previous methods, as the extra information comes for free from the requisite stabilizer measurement.
Quantum low-density-generator-matrix (QLDGM) codes are known to exhibit great error correction capabilities, surpassing existing quantum low-density-parity-check (QLDPC) codes and other sparse-graph schemes over the depolarizing channel. Most of the research on QLDPC codes and quantum error correction (QEC) is conducted for the symmetric instance of the generic Pauli channel, which incurs bit flips, phase flips, or a combination of both with the same probability. However, due to the behavior of the materials they are built from, some quantum devices must be modelled using a different channel model capable of accurately representing asymmetric scenarios in which the likelihood of a phase flip is higher than that of a bit flip. In this work, we study the design of QLDGM CSS codes for such Pauli channels. We show how codes tailored to the depolarizing channel are not well suited to these asymmetric environments and we derive methods to aptly design QLDGM CSS codes for this paradigm.