Quantum Error Correction Schemes Research Articles

Quantum error correction using multiple nitrogen-vacancy center qubits

Abstract Quantum error correction (QEC) is crucial for protecting quantum information from the decoherence caused by the interaction between the system and the environment. Many QEC techniques and algorithms have been proposed and demonstrated in various physical platforms at low temperatures, such as superconducting circuits, Rydberg’s atoms, and trapped ions. At room temperature, the QEC realization with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond has become very attractive due to the promising nature of the centers that have a relatively long spin coherence time and can be initialized and read out optically. Here, we investigate the potential realization of a simple repetitive three-qubit QEC scheme in which three NVs are coupled via dipolar coupling. A single NV qubit has been protected using two other coupled NVs which act as ancilla qubits. In this configuration of three NVs, a single NV qubit is protected from bit or phase-flip errors. This work paves the way for realizing five-qubit QEC with NVs at room temperature to preserve a qubit against any arbitrary single-qubit error.

Bases for optimising stabiliser decompositions of quantum states

Stabiliser states play a central role in the theory of quantum computation. For example, they are used to encode computational basis states in the most common quantum error correction schemes. Arbitrary quantum states admit many stabiliser decompositions: ways of being expressed as a superposition of stabiliser states. Understanding the structure of stabiliser decompositions has significant applications in verifying and simulating near-term quantum computers. We introduce and study the vector space of linear dependencies of n-qubit stabiliser states. These spaces have canonical bases containing vectors whose size grows exponentially in n. We construct elegant bases of linear dependencies of constant size three. Critically, our sparse bases can be computed without first compiling a dictionary of all n-qubit stabiliser states. We utilise them to explicitly compute the stabiliser extent of states of more qubits than is feasible with existing techniques. Finally, we delineate future applications to improving theoretical bounds on the stabiliser rank of magic states.

Single-step parity check gate set for quantum error correction

A key requirement for an effective quantum error correction (QEC) scheme is that the physical qubits have error rates below a certain threshold. The value of this threshold depends on the details of the specific QEC scheme, and its hardware-level implementation. This is especially important with parity-check circuits, which are the fundamental building blocks of QEC codes. The standard way of constructing the parity check circuit is using a universal set of gates, namely sequential CNOT gates, single-qubit rotations and measurements. We exploit the insight that a QEC code does not require universal logic gates, but can be simplified to perform the sole task of error detection and correction. By building gates that are fundamental to QEC, we can boost the threshold and ease the experimental demands on the physical hardware. We present a rigorous formalism for constructing and verifying the error behavior of these gates, linking the physical measurement of a process matrix to the abstract error models commonly used in QEC analysis. This allows experimentalists to directly map the gates used in their systems to thresholds derived for a broad-class of QEC codes. We give an example of these new constructions using the model system of two nuclear spins, coupled to an electron spin, showing the potential benefits of redesigning fundamental gate sets using QEC primitives, rather than traditional gate sets reliant on simple single and two-qubit gates.

Erasure Detection of a Dual-Rail Qubit Encoded in a Double-Post Superconducting Cavity.

Qubits with predominantly erasure errors present distinctive advantages for quantum error correction (QEC) and fault-tolerant quantum computing. Logical qubits based on dual-rail encoding that exploit erasure detection have been recently proposed in superconducting circuit architectures, with either coupled transmons or cavities. Here, we implement a dual-rail qubit encoded in a compact, double-post superconducting cavity. Using an auxiliary transmon, we perform erasure detection on the dual-rail subspace. We characterize the behavior of the code space by a novel method to perform joint-Wigner tomography. This is based on modifying the cross-Kerr interaction between the cavity modes and the transmon. We measure an erasure rate of 3.981±0.003 (ms)^{-1} and a residual, postselected dephasing error rate up to 0.17 (ms)^{-1} within the code space. This strong hierarchy of error rates, together with the compact and hardware-efficient nature of this novel architecture, holds promise in realizing QEC schemes with enhanced thresholds and improved scaling.

Concatenation Schemes for Topological Fault-tolerant Quantum Error Correction

We investigate a family of fault-tolerant quantum error correction schemes based on the concatenation of small error detection or error correction codes with the three-dimensional cluster state. We propose fault-tolerant state preparation and decoding schemes that effectively convert every circuit-level error into an erasure error, leveraging the cluster state's high threshold against such errors. We find a set of codes for which such a conversion is possible, and study their performance against the standard circuit-level depolarizing model. Our best performing scheme, which is based on a concatenation with a classical code, improves the threshold by 16.5% and decreases the spacetime overhead by 32% compared to the scheme without concatenation, with each scheme subject to a physical error rate of 10−3 and achieving a logical error rate of 10−6.

Quantum error correction scheme for fully-correlated noise

Quantum error correction scheme for fully-correlated noise

Autonomous quantum error correction and fault-tolerant quantum computation with squeezed cat qubits

We propose an autonomous quantum error correction scheme using squeezed cat (SC) code against excitation loss in continuous-variable systems. Through reservoir engineering, we show that a structured dissipation can stabilize a two-component SC while autonomously correcting the errors. The implementation of such dissipation only requires low-order nonlinear couplings among three bosonic modes or between a bosonic mode and a qutrit. While our proposed scheme is device independent, it is readily implementable with current experimental platforms such as superconducting circuits and trapped-ion systems. Compared to the stabilized cat, the stabilized SC has a much lower dominant error rate and a significantly enhanced noise bias. Furthermore, the bias-preserving operations for the SC have much lower error rates. In combination, the stabilized SC leads to substantially better logical performance when concatenating with an outer discrete-variable code. The surface-SC scheme achieves more than one order of magnitude increase in the threshold ratio between the loss rate κ1 and the engineered dissipation rate κ2. Under a practical noise ratio κ1/κ2 = 10−3, the repetition-SC scheme can reach a 10−15 logical error rate even with a small mean excitation number of 4, which already suffices for practically useful quantum algorithms.

Enhanced quantum teleportation using multi-qubit logical states

In this paper, an innovative approach is suggested for quantum teleportation of multi-qubit physical state into an error correctable multi-qubit logical state. For this purpose, an efficient quantum error correction scheme is applied to detect and correct one bit flip and/or phase flip error in the teleported logical state. In addition, the proposed mechanism is substantiated by teleporting an eight-qubit physical state via four-qubit cluster state which involves three-qubit logical states as a quantum channel. The proposed scheme may be physically realized in the future fault tolerant quantum technologies.

Quantum error correction in the lowest Landau level

We develop finite-dimensional versions of the quantum error-correcting codes proposed by Albert, Covey, and Preskill (ACP) for continuous-variable quantum computation on configuration spaces with non-Abelian symmetry groups. Our codes can be realized by a charged particle in a Landau level on a spherical geometry, in contrast to the planar Landau level realization of the qudit codes of Gottesman, Kitaev, and Preskill (GKP), or more generally by spin coherent states. Our quantum error-correction scheme is inherently approximate, and the encoded states may be easier to prepare than those of GKP or ACP.

Performance of Planar Floquet Codes with Majorana-Based Qubits

Quantum error correction is crucial for any quantum computing platform to achieve truly scalable quantum computation. The surface code and its variants have been considered the most promising quantum error correction scheme due to their high threshold, low overhead, and relatively simple structure that can naturally be implemented in many existing qubit architectures, such as superconducting qubits. The recent development of Floquet codes offers another promising approach. By going beyond the usual paradigm of stabilizer codes, Floquet codes achieve similar performance while being constructed entirely from two-qubit measurements. This makes them particularly suitable for platforms where two-qubit measurements can be implemented directly, such as measurement-only topological qubits based on Majorana zero modes (MZMs). Here, we explain how two variants of Floquet codes can be implemented on MZM-based architectures without any auxiliary qubits for syndrome measurement and with shallow syndrome extraction sequences. We then numerically demonstrate their favorable performance. In particular, we show that they improve the threshold for scalable quantum computation in MZM-based systems by an order of magnitude, and significantly reduce space and time overheads below threshold.

Tailored XZZX codes for biased noise

Quantum error correction (QEC) for generic errors is challenging due to the demanding threshold and resource requirements. Interestingly, when physical noise is biased, we can tailor our QEC schemes to the noise to improve performance. Here we study a family of codes having XZZX-type stabilizer generators, including a set of cyclic codes generalized from the five-qubit code and a set of topological codes that we call generalized toric codes (GTCs). We show that these XZZX codes are highly qubit efficient if tailored to biased noise. To characterize the code performance, we use the notion of effective distance, which generalizes code distance to the case of biased noise and constitutes a proxy for the logical failure rate. We find that the XZZX codes can achieve a favorable resource scaling by this metric under biased noise. We also show that the XZZX codes have remarkably high thresholds that reach what is achievable by random codes, and furthermore they can be efficiently decoded using matching decoders. Finally, by adding only one flag qubit, the XZZX codes can realize fault-tolerant QEC while preserving their large effective distance. In combination, our results show that tailored XZZX codes give a resource-efficient scheme for fault-tolerant QEC against biased noise.

All-optical cat-code quantum error correction

The cat code is a promising encoding scheme for bosonic quantum error correction as it allows for correction against losses---the dominant error mechanism in most bosonic systems. However, it has remained unclear how the required syndrome measurement and recovery can be implemented in the optical regime. Here, we introduce a teleportation-based error-correction scheme for the cat code, using elements suitable for an optical setting. The scheme detects and corrects single-photon losses while restoring the amplitude of the cat states, thereby greatly suppressing the accumulation of errors in lossy channels.

Measurement-based estimator scheme for continuous quantum error correction

Canonical discrete quantum error correction (DQEC) schemes use projective von Neumann measurements on stabilizers to discretize the error syndromes into a finite set, and fast unitary gates are applied to recover the corrupted information. Quantum error correction (QEC) based on continuous measurement, known as continuous quantum error correction (CQEC), in principle, can be executed faster than DQEC and can also be resource efficient. However, CQEC requires meticulous filtering of noisy continuous measurement data to reliably extract error syndromes on the basis of which errors could be detected. In this paper, we show that by constructing a measurement-based estimator (MBE) of the logical qubit to be protected, which is driven by the noisy continuous measurement currents of the stabilizers, it is possible to accurately track the errors occurring on the physical qubits in real time. We use this MBE to develop a continuous quantum error correction (MBE-CQEC) scheme that can protect the logical qubit to a high degree, surpassing the performance of DQEC, and also allows QEC to be conducted either immediately or in delayed time with instantaneous feedbacks.

ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ И РАЗРАБОТКА КВАНТОВОГО КОДА ДЛЯ ИСПРАВЛЕНИЯ ОШИБОК

Quantum error correction (QEC) is required in quantum computers to mitigate the impact of errorson physical qubits. The goal is to optimize the neural network for high decoding performance whilemaintaining a minimalistic hardware implementation. The errors associated with decoherence can bereduced by adopting QEC schemes that encode multiple imperfect physical qubits into a logical quantumstate, similar to classical error correction. The relevance of these studies lies in the mathematicaland software modeling and implementation of corrective codes to correct several types of quantumerrors in the development and implementation of quantum algorithms for solving classes of problems ofa classical nature. The scientific novelty of this direction is expressed in the elimination of one of theshortcomings of the quantum computing process. The development of the theory and principles for constructingmodeling systems that are resistant to external interference (dependence of data distortion onnoise, dependence of the error of a quantum computing process on the measure and purity of entanglement)for modeling quantum computing is a dynamic area, as evidenced by a large number of existingmodels reflecting certain quantum computational processes and phenomena (quantum teleportation,parallelism, entanglement of quantum states) and scientific papers. Although quantum computing is notyet ready to move from theory to practice, it is nevertheless possible to reasonably guess what form aquantum computer might take, or, more importantly for programming language design, what interface itwould be possible to interact with such a quantum computer. It is natural to apply the lessons learnedfrom the programming of classical computing to quantum computing. The analysis of works in this areashowed that a new qualitative level has now been reached, which opens up promising opportunities forthe implementation of multi-qubit quantum computing. Prospects for implementation and developmentare associated not only with technological capabilities, but also with the solution of issues of buildingeffective quantum systems for solving actual mathematical problems, cryptography problems and control(optimization) problems.

Autonomous quantum error correction in a four-photon Kerr parametric oscillator

Autonomous quantum error correction has gained considerable attention to avoid complicated measurements and feedback. Despite its simplicity compared with the conventional measurement-based quantum error correction, it is still a far from practical technique because of significant hardware overhead. We propose an autonomous quantum error correction scheme for a rotational symmetric bosonic code in a four-photon Kerr parametric oscillator. Our scheme is the simplest possible error correction scheme that can surpass the break-even point—it requires only a single continuous microwave tone. We also introduce an unconditional reset scheme that requires one more continuous microwave tone in addition to that for the error correction. The key properties underlying this simplicity are protected quasienergy states of a four-photon Kerr parametric oscillator and the degeneracy in its quasienergy level structure. These properties eliminate the need for state-by-state correction in the Fock basis. Our schemes greatly reduce the complexity of autonomous quantum error correction and thus may accelerate the use of the bosonic code for practical quantum computation.

Automated Discovery of Autonomous Quantum Error Correction Schemes

We can encode a qubit in the energy levels of a quantum system. Relaxation and other dissipation processes lead to decay of the fidelity of this stored information. Is it possible to preserve the quantum information for a longer time by introducing additional drives and dissipation? The existence of autonomous quantum error correcting codes answers this question in the positive. Nonetheless, discovering these codes for a real physical system, i.e., finding the encoding and the associated driving fields and bath couplings, remains a challenge that has required intuition and inspiration to overcome. In this work, we develop and demonstrate a computational approach based on adjoint optimization for discovering autonomous quantum error correcting codes given a Hamiltonian description of a physical system. We implement an optimizer that searches for a logical subspace and control parameters to better preserve quantum information. We demonstrate our method on a system of a harmonic oscillator coupled to a lossy qubit, and find that varying the Hamiltonian distance in Fock space—a proxy for the control hardware complexity—leads to discovery of different and new error correcting schemes. We discover what we call the 3 code, realizable with a Hamiltonian distance d=2, and propose a hardware-efficient implementation based on superconducting circuits.1 MoreReceived 11 August 2021Revised 4 December 2021Accepted 7 March 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.3.020302Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasAdiabatic quantum optimizationMachine learningQuantum error correctionQuantum information processing with continuous variablesPhysical SystemsSuperconducting qubitsQuantum Information

Beyond Single-Shot Fault-Tolerant Quantum Error Correction

Extensive quantum error correction is necessary in order to perform a useful computation on a noisy quantum computer. Moreover, quantum error correction must be implemented based on imperfect parity check measurements that may return incorrect outcomes or inject additional faults into the qubits. To achieve fault-tolerant error correction, Shor proposed to repeat the sequence of parity check measurements until the same outcome is observed sufficiently many times. Then, one can use this information to perform error correction. A basic implementation of this fault tolerance strategy requires $\Omega(r d^2)$ parity check measurements for a distance-d code defined by r parity checks. For some specific highly structured quantum codes, Bombin has shown that single-shot fault-tolerant quantum error correction is possible using only r measurements. In this work, we demonstrate that fault-tolerant quantum error correction can be achieved using $O(d \log(d))$ measurements for any code with distance $d \geq \Omega(n^\alpha)$ for some constant $\alpha > 0$. Moreover, we prove the existence of a sub-single-shot fault-tolerant quantum error correction scheme using fewer than r measurements. In some cases, the number of parity check measurements required for fault-tolerant quantum error correction is exponentially smaller than the number of parity checks defining the code.

Neural-Network Decoders for Quantum Error Correction Using Surface Codes: A Space Exploration of the Hardware Cost-Performance Tradeoffs

Quantum Error Correction (QEC) is required in quantum computers to mitigate the effect of errors on physical qubits. When adopting a QEC scheme based on surface codes, error decoding is the most computationally expensive task in the classical electronic back-end. Decoders employing neural networks (NN) are well-suited for this task but their hardware implementation has not been presented yet. This work presents a space exploration of fully-connected feed-forward NN decoders for small distance surface codes. The goal is to optimize the neural network for high decoding performance, while keeping a minimalistic hardware implementation. This is needed to meet the tight delay constraints of real-time surface code decoding. We demonstrate that hardware based NN-decoders can achieve high decoding performance comparable to other state-of-the-art decoding algorithms whilst being well below the tight delay requirements $(\approx 440\ \mathrm{ns})$ of current solid-state qubit technologies for both ASIC designs $(<30\ \mathrm{ns})$ and FPGA implementations $(<90\ \mathrm{ns})$. These results designates NN-decoders as fitting candidates for an integrated hardware implementation in future large-scale quantum computers.

Loss-tolerant concatenated Bell-state measurement with encoded coherent-state qubits for long-range quantum communication

The coherent-state qubit is a promising candidate for optical quantum information processing due to its nearly-deterministic nature of the Bell-state measurement (BSM). However, its non-orthogonality incurs difficulties such as failure of the BSM. One may use a large amplitude ($\alpha$) for the coherent state to minimize the failure probability, but the qubit then becomes more vulnerable to dephasing by photon loss. We propose a hardware-efficient concatenated BSM (CBSM) scheme with modified parity encoding using coherent states with reasonably small amplitudes ($|\alpha| \lessapprox 2$), which simultaneously suppresses both failures and dephasing in the BSM procedure. We numerically show that the CBSM scheme achieves a success probability arbitrarily close to unity for appropriate values of $\alpha$ and sufficiently low photon loss rates (e.g., $\lessapprox 5\%$). Furthermore, we verify that the quantum repeater scheme exploiting the CBSM scheme for quantum error correction enables one to carry out efficient long-range quantum communication over 1000 km. We show that the performance is comparable to those of other up-to-date methods or even outperforms them for some cases. Finally, we present methods to prepare logical qubits under modified parity encoding and implement elementary logical operations, which consist of several physical-level ingredients such as generation of Schr\"odinger's cat state and elementary gates under coherent-state basis. Our work demonstrates that the encoded coherent-state qubits in free-propagating fields provide an alternative route to fault-tolerant information processing, especially long-range quantum communication.

Relaxation of single-electron spin qubits in silicon in the presence of interface steps

We develop a valley-dependent envelope function theory that can describe the effects of arbitrary configurations of interface steps and miscuts on the qubit relaxation time. For a given interface roughness, we show how our theory can be used to find the valley-dependent dipole matrix elements, the valley splitting, and the spin-valley coupling as a function of the electromagnetic fields in a Si/SiGe quantum dot spin qubit. We demonstrate that our theory can quantitatively reproduce and explain the result of experimental measurements for the spin relaxation time with only a minimal set of free parameters. Investigating the sample dependence of spin relaxation, we find that at certain conditions for a disordered quantum dot, the spin-valley coupling vanishes. This, in turn, completely blocks the valley-induced qubit decay. We show that the presence of interface steps can in general give rise to a strongly anisotropic behavior of the spin relaxation time. Remarkably, by properly tuning the gate-induced out-of-plane electric field, it is possible to turn the spin-valley hot spot into a ``cold spot'' at which the relaxation time is significantly prolonged and where the spin relaxation time is additionally first-order insensitive to the fluctuations of the magnetic field. This electrical tunability enables on-demand fast qubit reset and initialization that is critical for many quantum algorithms and error correction schemes. We therefore argue that the valley degree of freedom can be used as an advantage for Si spin qubits.