The ability to perform entangling operations in parallel with a low error is essential for a large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computer. However, for trapped-ion systems, it is a challenging task due to the crosstalk resulting from the collective motional modes. Here, we develop a highly paralleled quantum circuit demonstrating a logical qubit based on the Steane code and study the impact of the crosstalk error on the performance of the fault-tolerant protocol. We show that the crosstalk indeed greatly destroys the fault-tolerant property of the quantum error correction. To achieve the break-even point with encoded qubits, we identify the suppression requirement of the crosstalk error to be less than ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}$ for the Steane code. Furthermore, to mitigate the crosstalk below the fault-tolerant threshold, we propose a highly efficient optimization scheme by utilizing the programmable optical tweezer array. Overall, we make an elegant combination of the pulse-control optimization of parallel gate operations with the fault-tolerant protocol on the error-protected universal quantum computer.
The ability to perform entangling operations in parallel with a low error is essential for a large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computer. However, for trapped-ion systems, it is a challenging task due to the crosstalk resulting from the collective motional modes. Here, we develop a highly paralleled quantum circuit demonstrating a logical qubit based on the Steane code and study the impact of the crosstalk error on the performance of the fault-tolerant protocol. We show that the crosstalk indeed greatly destroys the fault-tolerant property of the quantum error correction. To achieve the break-even point with encoded qubits, we identify the suppression requirement of the crosstalk error to be less than 10\ensuremath−6 for the Steane code. Furthermore, to mitigate the crosstalk below the fault-tolerant threshold, we propose a highly efficient optimization scheme by utilizing the programmable optical tweezer array. Overall, we make an elegant combination of the pulse-control optimization of parallel gate operations with the fault-tolerant protocol on the error-protected universal quantum computer.
Abstract The circuit model of a quantum computer consists of sequences of gate operations between quantum bits (qubits), drawn from a universal family of discrete operations1. The ability to execute parallel entangling quantum gates offers efficiency gains in numerous quantum circuits2–4, as well as for entire algorithms—such as Shor’s factoring algorithm5—and quantum simulations6, 7. In circuits such as full adders and multiple-control Toffoli gates, parallelism can provide an exponential improvement in overall execution time through the divide-and-conquer technique8. More importantly, quantum gate parallelism is essential for fault-tolerant error correction of qubits that suffer from idle errors9, 10. However, the implementation of parallel quantum gates is complicated by potential crosstalk, especially between qubits that are fully connected by a common-mode bus, such as in Coulomb-coupled trapped atomic ions11, 12 or cavity-coupled superconducting transmons13. Here we present experimental results for parallel two-qubit entangling gates in an array of fully connected trapped 171Yb+ ion qubits. We perform a one-bit full-addition operation on a quantum computer using a depth-four quantum circuit4, 14, 15, where circuit depth denotes the number of runtime steps required. Our method exploits the power of highly connected qubit systems using classical control techniques and will help to speed up quantum circuits and achieve fault tolerance in trapped-ion quantum computers.
Physical qubits in experimental quantum information processors are inevitably exposed to different sources of noise and imperfections, which lead to errors that typically accumulate hindering our ability to perform long computations reliably. Progress towards scalable and robust quantum computation relies on exploiting quantum error correction (QEC) to actively battle these undesired effects. In this work, we present a comprehensive study of crosstalk errors in a quantum-computing architecture based on a single string of ions confined by a radio-frequency trap, and manipulated by individually-addressed laser beams. This type of errors affects spectator qubits that, ideally, should remain unaltered during the application of single- and two-qubit quantum gates addressed at a different set of active qubits. We microscopically model crosstalk errors from first principles and present a detailed study showing the importance of using a coherent vs incoherent error modelling and, moreover, discuss strategies to actively suppress this crosstalk at the gate level. Finally, we study the impact of residual crosstalk errors on the performance of fault-tolerant QEC numerically, identifying the experimental target values that need to be achieved in near-term trapped-ion experiments to reach the break-even point for beneficial QEC with low-distance topological codes.
Physical qubits in experimental quantum information processors are inevitably exposed to different sources of noise and imperfections, which lead to errors that typically accumulate hindering our ability to perform long computations reliably.Progress towards scalable and robust quantum computation relies on exploiting quantum error correction (QEC) to actively battle these undesired effects.In this work, we present a comprehensive study of crosstalk errors in a quantumcomputing architecture based on a single string of ions confined by a radio-frequency trap, and manipulated by individuallyaddressed laser beams.This type of errors affects spectator qubits that, ideally, should remain unaltered during the application of single-and two-qubit quantum gates addressed at a different set of active qubits.We microscopically model crosstalk errors from first principles and present a detailed study showing the importance of using a coherent vs incoherent error modelling and, moreover, discuss strategies to actively suppress this crosstalk at the gate level.Finally, we study the impact of residual crosstalk errors on the performance of fault-tolerant QEC numerically, identifying the experimental target values that need to be achieved in near-term trapped-ion experiments to reach the break-even point for beneficial QEC with low-distance topological codes.
Quantum error correction protects fragile quantum information by encoding it into a larger quantum system. These extra degrees of freedom enable the detection and correction of errors, but also increase the operational complexity of the encoded logical qubit. Fault-tolerant circuits contain the spread of errors while operating the logical qubit, and are essential for realizing error suppression in practice. While fault-tolerant design works in principle, it has not previously been demonstrated in an error-corrected physical system with native noise characteristics. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate fault-tolerant preparation, measurement, rotation, and stabilizer measurement of a Bacon-Shor logical qubit using 13 trapped ion qubits. When we compare these fault-tolerant protocols to non-fault tolerant protocols, we see significant reductions in the error rates of the logical primitives in the presence of noise. The result of fault-tolerant design is an average state preparation and measurement error of 0.6% and a Clifford gate error of 0.3% after error correction. Additionally, we prepare magic states with fidelities exceeding the distillation threshold, demonstrating all of the key single-qubit ingredients required for universal fault-tolerant operation. These results demonstrate that fault-tolerant circuits enable highly accurate logical primitives in current quantum systems. With improved two-qubit gates and the use of intermediate measurements, a stabilized logical qubit can be achieved.
Fault-tolerant quantum error correction provides a strategy to protect information processed by a quantum computer against noise which would otherwise corrupt the data. A fault-tolerant universal quantum computer must implement a universal gate set on the logical level in order to perform arbitrary calculations to in principle unlimited precision. In this paper we characterize the recent demonstration of a fault-tolerant universal gate set in a trapped-ion quantum computer [Postler et al., Nature (London) 605, 7911 (2022)] and identify aspects to improve the design of experimental setups to reach an advantage of logical over physical qubit operation. We show that various criteria to assess the break-even point for fault-tolerant quantum operations are within reach for the ion trap quantum computing architecture under consideration. Furthermore, we analyze the influence of crosstalk in entangling gates for logical state preparation circuits. These circuits can be designed to respect fault tolerance for specific microscopic noise models. We find that an experimentally informed depolarizing noise model captures the essential noise dynamics of the fault-tolerant experiment that we consider, and crosstalk is negligible in the currently accessible regime of physical error rates. For deterministic Pauli state preparation, we provide a fault-tolerant unitary logical qubit initialization circuit, which can be realized without in-sequence measurement and feed-forward of classical information. Additionally, we show that nondeterministic state preparation schemes, i.e., repeat until success, for logical Pauli and magic states perform with higher logical fidelity over their deterministic counterparts for the current and anticipated future regime of physical error rates. Our results offer guidance on improvements of physical qubit operations and validate the experimentally informed noise model as a tool to predict logical failure rates in quantum computing architectures based on trapped ions.
The ability to execute a large number of quantum gates in parallel is a fundamental requirement for quantum error correction, allowing an error threshold to exist under the finite coherence time of physical qubits. Recently, two-dimensional ion crystals have been demonstrated as a plausible approach to scale up the qubit number in a trapped ion quantum computer. However, although the long-range Coulomb interaction between the ions enables their strong connectivity, it also complicates the design of parallel gates and leads to intrinsic crosstalk errors. Here we examine the effects of crosstalk errors on a rotated surface code. We show that, instead of the distance-3 code considered in previous works, a distance-5 code is necessary to correct the two-qubit crosstalk error. We numerically calculate the logical error rates and coherence times under various crosstalk errors, gate infidelities, and coherence times of the physical qubits, and we optimize the parallelism level according to the competition between different error sources. We show that a break-even point can be reached under realistic parameters. We further analyze the spatial dependence of the crosstalk, and discuss the scaling of the logical error rate versus the code distance for the long-term goal of a logical error rate below 10 − 10 .