Fault-tolerant Quantum Computing

Ivan B. Djordjević

Ivan B. Djordjević

I. S. Osborne

S. D. Barrett, Thomas M. Stace

Many proposals for fault tolerant quantum computation (FTQC) suffer detectable loss processes. Here we show that topological FTQC schemes, which are known to have high error thresholds, are also extremely robust against losses. We demonstrate that these schemes tolerate loss rates up to 24.9%, determined by bond percolation on a cubic lattice. Our numerical results show that these schemes retain good performance when loss and computational errors are simultaneously present.

Alexander M. Dalzell, Sam McArdle, Mario Berta +10 more

Theodoros Trochatos, Christopher Kang, Frederic T. Chong +1 more

Emergence of fault-tolerant quantum computers (FTQC) brings about promise of harnessing the power of quantum computing at larger scale. At the same time, as quantum computers are expected to process more sensitive information, there is a need to understand the security issues in fault-tolerant quantum computers, and develop defenses for attacks that may compromise confidentiality or integrity of the data processed by FTQC. While noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers have already been studied from the security perspective, understanding security issues with FTQC is still an open research question. To address the missing research gap, this work presents the first exploration of possible security vulnerabilities of FTQC. The work presents analysis of possible threat models and outlines potential vulnerabilities of FTQC. Understanding the landscape of the threats can help lead to development of safer FTQC design at both software and hardware levels.