Frontiers in Physics

Fault-tolerant quaternary belief propagation decoding based on a neural network

Naihua Ji, Chen Zhao, Yingjie Qu, Rongyi Bao, Xin Zhou Yang, Shumei Wang

Published May 17, 2023• 4 citations

Abstract

The article discusses the challenge of finding an efficient decoder for quantum error correction codes for fault-tolerant experiments in quantum computing. The study aims to develop a better decoding scheme based on the flag-bridge fault tolerance experiment. The research compares two decoding algorithms, a deep neural network decoding scheme and a simple decoder, and a recurrent neural network decoding scheme based on the belief propagation algorithm variant MBP 4 algorithm. The study improved the syndrome extraction circuit based on the flag-bridge method to meet the requirements of fault-tolerant experiments better. Two decoding schemes were studied, a combination of a deep neural network and a simple decoder and a recurrent neural network structure based on the MBP 4 algorithm. The first scheme used neural networks to assist simple decoders in determining whether additional logical corrections need to be added. The second scheme used a recurrent neural network structure designed through the variant MBP 4 algorithm, along with a post-processing method to pinpoint the error qubit position for decoding. Experimental results showed that the decoding scheme developed in the study improved the pseudo-threshold by 39.52% compared to the minimum-weight perfect matching decoder. The two decoders had thresholds of approximately 15.8% and 16.4%, respectively. The study’s findings suggest that the proposed decoding schemes could improve quantum error correction and fault-tolerant experiments in quantum computing.

DOI: 10.3389/fphy.2023.1164567

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