We ask whether there are fundamental limits on storing quantum information reliably in a bounded volume of space. To investigate this question, we study quantum error correcting codes specified by geometrically local commuting constraints on a 2D lattice of finite-dimensional quantum particles. For these 2D systems, we derive a tradeoff between the number of encoded qubits k, the distance of the code d, and the number of particles n. It is shown that kd2= O(n) where the coefficient in O(n) depends only on the locality of the constraints and dimension of the Hilbert spaces describing individual particles. We show that the analogous tradeoff for the classical information storage is k(√d) = O(n).
We ask whether there are fundamental limits on storing quantum information reliably in a bounded volume of space. To investigate this question, we study quantum error correcting codes specified by geometrically local commuting constraints on a 2D lattice of finite-dimensional quantum particles. For these 2D systems, we derive a tradeoff between the number of encoded qubits k, the distance of the code d, and the number of particles n. It is shown that kd2= O(n) where the coefficient in O(n) depends only on the locality of the constraints and dimension of the Hilbert spaces describing individual particles. We show that the analogous tradeoff for the classical information storage is k(√d) = O(n).
We ask whether there are fundamental limits on storing quantum information reliably in a bounded volume of space. To investigate this question, we study quantum error correcting codes specified by geometrically local commuting constraints on a 2D lattice of finite-dimensional quantum particles. For these 2D systems, we derive a tradeoff between the number of encoded qubits k, the distance of the code d, and the number of particles n. It is shown that kd{2}=O(n) where the coefficient in O(n) depends only on the locality of the constraints and dimension of the Hilbert spaces describing individual particles. The analogous tradeoff for the classical information storage is k sqrt[d]=O(n).
We study the fundamental limits on the reliable storage of quantum information in lattices of qubits by deriving tradeoff bounds for approximate quantum error correcting codes. We introduce a notion of local approximate correctability and code distance, and give a number of equivalent formulations thereof, generalizing various exact error-correction criteria. Our tradeoff bounds relate the number of physical qubits n , the number of encoded qubits k , the code distance d , the accuracy parameter δ that quantifies how well the erasure channel can be reversed, and the locality parameter ℓ that specifies the length scale at which the recovery operation can be done. In a regime where the recovery is successful to accuracy δ that is exponentially small in ℓ , which is the case for perturbations of local commuting projector codes, our bound reads kd2D−1≤O(n(logn)2DD−1) for codes on D -dimensional lattices of Euclidean metric. We also find that the code distance of any local approximate code cannot exceed O(ℓn(D−1)/D) if δ≤O(ℓn−1/D) . As a corollary of our formulation of correctability in terms of logical operator avoidance, we show that the code distance d and the size d~ of a minimal region that can support all approximate logical operators satisfies d~d1D−1≤O(nℓDD−1) , where the logical operators are accurate up to O((nδ/d)1/2) in operator norm. Finally, we prove that for two-dimensional systems if logical operators can be approximated by operators supported on constant-width flexible strings, then the dimension of the code space must be bounded. This supports one of the assumptions of algebraic anyon theories, that there exist only finitely many anyon types.
We derive new tradeoffs for reliable quantum information storage in a 2D local architecture based on subsystem quantum codes. Our results apply to stabilizer subsystem codes, that is, stabilizer codes in which part of the logical qubits does not encode any information. A stabilizer subsystem code can be specified by its gauge group - a subgroup of the Pauli group that includes the stabilizers and the logical operators on the unused logical qubits. We assume that the physical qubits are arranged on a two-dimensional grid and the gauge group has spatially local generators such that each generator acts only on a few qubits located close to each other. Our main result is an upper bound kd = O(n), where k is the number of encoded qubits, d is the minimal distance, and n is the number of physical qubits. In the special case when both gauge group and the stabilizer group have spatially local generators, we derive a stronger bound kd2= O(n) which is tight up to a constant factor.
We study the structure of logical operators in local D-dimensional quantum codes, considering both subsystem codes with geometrically local gauge generators and codes defined by geometrically local commuting projectors. We show that if the code distance is d, then any logical operator can be supported on a set of specified geometry containing $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{d}$ qubits, where $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{d}{d}^{1/(D\ensuremath{-}1)}=O(n)$ and n is the code length. Our results place limitations on partially self-correcting quantum memories, in which at least some logical operators are protected by energy barriers that grow with system size. We also show that for any two-dimensional local commuting projector code there is a nontrivial logical ``string'' operator supported on a narrow strip, where the operator is only slightly entangling across any cut through the strip.
This paper proves optimal tradeoffs between the locality and parameters of quantum error-correcting codes. Quantum codes give a promising avenue towards quantum fault tolerance, but the practical constraint of locality limits their quality. The seminal Bravyi-Poulin-Terhal (BPT) bound says that a [[n,k,d]] quantum stabilizer code with 2D-locality must satisfy kd2≤O(n). We answer the natural question: for better code parameters, how much "non-locality" is needed? In particular, (i) how long must the long-range interactions be, and (ii) how many long-range interactions must there be? We give a complete answer to both questions for all n,k,d: above the BPT bound, any 2D-embedding must have at least Ω(#∗) interactions of length Ω(ℓ∗), where #∗=max(k,d) and ℓ∗=max(nd,(nkd2)1/4). Conversely, we exhibit quantum codes that show, in strong ways, that our interaction length ℓ∗ and interaction count #∗ are asymptotically optimal for all n,k,d. Our results generalize or improve all prior works on this question, including the BPT bound and the results of Baspin and Krishna. One takeaway of our work is that, for any desired distance d and dimension k, the number of long-range interactions is asymptotically minimized by a good qLDPC code of length Θ(max(k,d)). Following Baspin and Krishna, we also apply our results to the codes implemented in the stacked architecture and obtain better bounds. In particular, we rule out any implementation of hypergraph product codes in the stacked architecture.
We ask what is the general framework for a quantum error correcting code that is defined by a sequence of measurements. Recently, there has been much interest in Floquet codes and space-time codes. In this work, we define and study the distance of a dynamical code. This is a subtle concept and difficult to determine: At any given time, the system will be in a subspace which forms a quantum error-correcting code with a given distance, but the full error correction capability of that code may not be available due to the schedule of measurements associated with the code. We address this challenge by developing an algorithm that tracks information we have learned about the error syndromes through the protocol and put that together to determine the distance of a dynamical code, in a non-fault-tolerant context. We use the tools developed for the algorithm to analyze the initialization and masking properties of a generic Floquet code. Further, we look at properties of dynamical codes under the constraint of geometric locality with a view to understand whether the fundamental limitations on logical gates and code parameters imposed by geometric locality for traditional codes can be surpassed in the dynamical paradigm. We find that codes with a limited number of long range connectivity will not allow non-Clifford gates to be implemented with finite depth circuits in the 2D setting.