We present a quantum error correction code which protects a qubit of information against general one qubit errors which maybe caused by the interaction with the environment. To accomplish this, we encode the original state by distributing quantum information over five qubits, the minimal number required for this task. We give a simple circuit which takes the initial state with four extra qubits in the state |0> to the encoded state. The circuit can be converted into a decoding one by simply running it backward. Reading the extra four qubits at the decoder's output we learn which one of the sixteen alternatives (no error plus all fifteen possible 1-bit errors) was realized. The original state of the encoded qubit can then be restored by a simple unitary transformation.
Quantum error correction will likely be essential for building a large-scale quantum computer, but it comes with significant requirements at the level of classical control software. In particular, a quantum error-correcting code must be supplemented with a fast and accurate classical decoding algorithm. Standard techniques for measuring the parity-check operators of a quantum error-correcting code involve repeated measurements, which both increases the amount of data that needs to be processed by the decoder, and changes the nature of the decoding problem. Knill error correction is a technique that replaces repeated syndrome measurements with a single round of measurements, but requires an auxiliary logical Bell state. Here, we provide a theoretical and numerical investigation into Knill error correction from the perspective of decoding. We give a self-contained description of the protocol, prove its fault tolerance under locally decaying (circuit-level) noise, and numerically benchmark its performance for quantum low-density parity-check codes. We show analytically and numerically that the time-constrained decoding problem for Knill error correction can be solved using the same decoder used for the simpler code-capacity noise model, illustrating that Knill error correction may alleviate the stringent requirements on classical control required for building a large-scale quantum computer.
We present a quantum error correction code which protects a qubit of information against general one qubit errors. To accomplish this, we encode the original state by distributing quantum information over five qubits, the minimal number required for this task. We describe a circuit which takes the initial state with four extra qubits in the state
∣0〉 to the encoded state. It can also be converted into a decoder by running it backward. The original state of the encoded qubit can then be restored by a simple unitary transformation.
Quantum error correction is an essential ingredient for universal quantum computing. Despite tremendous experimental efforts in the study of quantum error correction, to date, there has been no demonstration in the realisation of universal quantum error correction code (QECC), with the subsequent verification of all key features including the identification of an arbitrary physical error, the capability for transversal manipulation of the logical state, and state decoding. To address this notoriously difficult challenge, we push the limits of the depth of superconducting quantum circuits and experimentally realise the universal five-qubit QECC, the so-called smallest perfect code that permits corrections of generic single-qubit errors. In the experiment, having optimised the encoding circuit, we employ an array of superconducting qubits to realise the five-qubit QECC for several typical logical states including the magic state, an indispensable resource for realising non-Clifford gates. The encoded states are prepared with an average fidelity of
57.1(3)% while with a high fidelity of
98.6(1)% in the code space. Then, the arbitrary single-qubit errors introduced manually are identified by measuring the stabilizers. We further implement logical Pauli operations with a fidelity of
97.2(2)% within the code space. Finally, we realise the decoding circuit and recover the input state with a process fidelity of
57.4(7)%. After decoding, by identifying errors via the measurement of the four ancillae and then mathematically recovering the qubit state, we verify the power of error correction of this code. Thus, by demonstrating each key aspect of error correction with the five-qubit code, our work establishes the viability of experimental quantum error correction with superconducting qubits and paves the route to fault-tolerant quantum computing.