We consider the possibility of adding noise to a quantum circuit to make it efficiently simulatable classically. In previous works this approach has been used to derive upper bounds to fault tolerance thresholds - usually by identifying a privileged resource, such as an entangling gate or a non-Clifford operation, and then deriving the noise levels required to make it `unprivileged'. In this work we consider extensions of this approach where noise is added to Clifford gates too, and then `commuted' around until it concentrates on attacking the non-Clifford resource. While commuting noise around is not always straightforward, we find that easy instances can be identified in popular fault tolerance proposals, thereby enabling sharper upper bounds to be derived in these cases. For instance we find that if we take Knill's high threshold proposal together with the ability to prepare any possible state in the $XY$ plane of the Bloch sphere, then no more than 3.69% error-per-gate noise is sufficient to make it classical, and 13.71% of Knill's gamma noise model is sufficient. These bounds have been derived without noise being added to the decoding parts of the circuits. Introducing such noise in a toy example suggests that the present approach can be optimised further to yield tighter bounds.
In the framework quotient algebra partition, a general methodology is introduced to construct fault tolerant encodes for an arbitrary action in an error-correcting code.
We propose a scheme that converts a stabilizer code into another stabilizer code in a fault tolerant manner. The scheme first puts both codes in specific forms, and proceeds the conversion from a source code to a target code by applying Clifford gates. The Clifford gates are chosen from the comparisons between both codes. The fault tolerance of the conversion is guaranteed by quantum error correction in every step during the entire conversion process. As examples, we show three conversions: the $[[5,1,3]]$ stabilizer code and Steane code, Steane code and $[[15,1,3]]$ Reed-Muller code, and Stea…
I discuss a variety of issues relating to near-future experiments demonstrating fault-tolerant quantum computation. I describe a family of fault-tolerant quantum circuits that can be performed with 5 qubits arranged on a ring with nearest-neighbor interactions. I also present a criterion whereby we can say that an experiment has succeeded in demonstrating fault tolerance. Finally, I discuss the possibility of using future fault-tolerant experiments to answer important questions about the interaction of fault-tolerant protocols with real experimental errors.
I give an overview of the basic concepts behind quantum error correction and quantum fault tolerance. This includes the quantum error correction conditions, stabilizer codes, CSS codes, transversal gates, fault-tolerant error correction, and the threshold theorem.
We consider the problem of fault-tolerant quantum computation in the presence of slow error diagnostics, either caused by measurement latencies or slow decoding algorithms. Our scheme offers a few improvements over previously existing solutions, for instance it does not require active error correction and results in a reduced error-correction overhead when error diagnostics is much slower than the gate time. In addition, we adapt our protocol to cases where the underlying error correction strategy chooses the optimal correction amongst all Clifford gates instead of the usual Pauli gates. The r…
In general, fault-tolerant quantum error correction (FTQEC) procedures are designed to detect, correct, and be fault-tolerant against errors occurring within the qubit subspace. But in some qubit implementations, additional "leakage" errors can occur in which the system leaves this subspace, and standard FTQEC procedures may not be fault-tolerant against such errors. Generic methods for achieving fault-tolerance against leakage are costly in terms of resources. In this paper we demonstrate that for a leakage model common to many photonic gate implementations, FTQEC can be implemented with far …
The immense scalability of continuous-variable cluster states motivates their study as a platform for quantum computing, with fault tolerance possible given sufficient squeezing and appropriately encoded qubits [Menicucci, PRL 112, 120504 (2014)]. Here, we expand the scope of that result by showing that additional anti-squeezing has no effect on the fault-tolerance threshold, removing the purity requirement for experimental continuous-variable cluster-state quantum computing. We emphasize that the appropriate experimental target for fault-tolerant applications is to directly measure 15-17 dB o…
We study two-qubit circuits over the Clifford+CS gate set, which consists of the Clifford gates together with the controlled-phase gate CS=diag(1,1,1,i). The Clifford+CS gate set is universal for quantum computation and its elements can be implemented fault-tolerantly in most error-correcting schemes through magic state distillation. Since non-Clifford gates are typically more expensive to perform in a fault-tolerant manner, it is often desirable to construct circuits that use few CS gates. In the present paper, we introduce an efficient and optimal synthesis algorithm for two-qubit Clifford+C…
We estimate the success probability of quantum protocols composed of Clifford operations in the presence of Pauli errors. Our method is derived from the fault-point formalism previously used to determine the success rate of low-distance error correction codes. Here we apply it to a wider range of quantum protocols and identify circuit structures that allow for efficient calculation of the exact success probability and even the final distribution of output states. As examples, we apply our method to the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm and the Steane [[7,1,3]] quantum error correction code and comp…
We extensively test a recent protocol to demonstrate quantum fault tolerance on three systems: (1) a real-time simulation of five spin qubits coupled to an environment with two-level defects, (2) a real-time simulation of transmon quantum computers, and (3) the 16-qubit processor of the IBM Q Experience. In the simulations, the dynamics of the full system is obtained by numerically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. We find that the fault-tolerant scheme provides a systematic way to improve the results when the errors are dominated by the inherent control and measurement errors p…
The Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) encoding of a qubit within an oscillator is particularly appealing for fault-tolerant quantum computing with bosons because Gaussian operations on encoded Pauli eigenstates enable Clifford quantum computing with error correction. We show that applying GKP error correction to Gaussian input states, such as vacuum, produces distillable magic states, achieving universality without additional non-Gaussian elements. Fault tolerance is possible with sufficient squeezing and low enough external noise. Thus, Gaussian operations are sufficient for fault-tolerant, uni…
Fault-tolerant quantum computation (FTQC) schemes using large block codes that encode $k>1$ qubits in $n$ physical qubits can potentially reduce the resource overhead to a great extent because of their high encoding rate. However, the fault-tolerant (FT) logical operations for the encoded qubits are difficult to find and implement, which usually takes not only a very large resource overhead but also long $\textit{in-situ}$ computation time. In this paper, we focus on Calderbank-Shor-Steane $[\![ n,k,d ]\!]$ (CSS) codes and their logical FT Clifford circuits. We show that the depth of an arbitr…
Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, University of Maryland（量子信息与计算机科学联合中心，马里兰大学）；Shanghai Institute for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences (SIMIS)（上海数学与交叉学科研究院）；Yau Mathematical Sciences Center, Tsinghua University（清华大学丘成桐数学科学中心）
We consider the problem of fault tolerance in the graph-state model of quantum computation. Using the notion of composable simulations, we provide a simple proof for the existence of an accuracy threshold for graph-state computation by invoking the threshold theorem derived for quantum circuit computation. Lower bounds for the threshold in the graph-state model are then obtained from known bounds in the circuit model under the same noise process.
Quantum error correction is an essential component for practical quantum computing on noisy quantum hardware. However, logical operations on error-corrected qubits require a significant resource overhead, especially for high-precision and high-fidelity non-Clifford rotation gates. To address this issue, we propose a postselection-based algorithm to efficiently prepare resource states for gate teleportation. Our algorithm achieves fault tolerance, demonstrating the exponential suppression of logical errors with code distance, and it applies to any stabilizer codes. We provide analytical derivat…
With the intense interest in small, noisy quantum computing devices comes the push for larger, more accurate -- and hence more useful -- quantum computers. While fully fault-tolerant quantum computers are, in principle, capable of achieving arbitrarily accurate calculations using devices subjected to general noise, they require immense resources far beyond our current reach. An intermediate step would be to construct quantum computers of limited accuracy enhanced by lower-level, and hence lower-cost, noise-removal techniques. This is the motivation for our work, which looks into fault-tolerant…
In order to build a scalable quantum computer error correction will be required to reduce the impact of errors. Implementing error correction in the framework of measurement based computation manifests itself as the construction of fault tolerant cluster states (FTCSs). While any 2-dimensional stabilizer code can be used to construct a FTCS through the process of foliation, here we find FTCSs that cannot be constructed through foliation of a stabilizer code, and identify new examples of self-dual codes that can still be implemented in a 2-dimensional physical architecture.
Teleportation is a crucial element in fault-tolerant quantum computation and a complete understanding of its capacity is very important for the practical implementation of optimal fault-tolerant architectures. It is known that stabilizer codes support a natural set of gates that can be more easily implemented by teleportation than any other gates. These gates belong to the so called $\mathcal{C}_k$ hierarchy introduced by Gottesman and Chuang (Nature \textbf{402}, 390). Moreover, a subset of $\mathcal{C}_k$ gates, called semi-Clifford operations, can be implemented by an even simpler architect…
In-situ benchmarking of fault-tolerant quantum circuits. I. Clifford circuits
Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, NIST/University of Maryland（量子信息与计算机联合中心，美国国家标准与技术研究院/马里兰大学）；Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, University of California at Berkeley（西蒙斯计算理论研究所，加州大学伯克利分校）；Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zürich（理论物理研究所，苏黎世联邦理工学院）；Department of Physics, Harvard University（物理学系，哈佛大学）；National Institute of Standards and Technology（美国国家标准与技术研究院）
A quantum computer -- i.e., a computer capable of manipulating data in quantum superposition -- would find applications including factoring, quantum simulation and tests of basic quantum theory. Since quantum superpositions are fragile, the major hurdle in building such a computer is overcoming noise. Developed over the last couple of years, new schemes for achieving fault tolerance based on error detection, rather than error correction, appear to tolerate as much as 3-6% noise per gate -- an order of magnitude better than previous procedures. But proof techniques could not show that these pro…
Quantum error correction and fault-tolerance have provided the possibility for large scale quantum computations without a detrimental loss of quantum information. A very natural class of gates for fault-tolerant quantum computation is the Clifford gate set and as such their usefulness for universal quantum computation is of great interest. Clifford group gates augmented by magic state preparation give the possibility of simulating universal quantum computation. However, experimentally one cannot expect to perfectly prepare magic states. Nonetheless, it has been shown that by repeatedly applyin…
We present a [[7, 1, 3]] quantum error-correcting code that is able to achieve fault-tolerant syndrome measurement using one ancillary qubit per stabilizer for an error model of independent single-qubit Pauli errors. All single-qubit Pauli errors on the ancillary qubits propagate to form exclusively correctable errors on the data qubits. The situation changes for error models with two-qubit Pauli errors. We compare the level-1 logical error rates under two noise models: the standard Pauli symmetric depolarizing error model and an anisotropic error model. The anisotropic model is motivated by c…
Fault-tolerant quantum computing requires gates which function correctly despite the presence of errors, and are scalable if the error probability-per-gate is below a threshold value. To date, no method has been described for calculating this probability from measurements on a gate. Here we introduce a technique enabling quantitative benchmarking of quantum-logic gates against fault-tolerance thresholds for any architecture. We demonstrate our technique experimentally using a photonic entangling-gate. The relationship between experimental errors and their quantum logic effect is non-trivial: r…
Transpiler-Architecture Co-Design to Curb Clifford Costs in Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing
The University of British Columbia（不列颠哥伦比亚大学）；Pacific Northwest National Laboratory（太平洋西北国家实验室）；University of California San Diego（加州大学圣地亚哥分校）；The University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）；University of Washington（华盛顿大学）
It is hard to achieve a theoretical quantum advantage on NISQ devices. Besides the attempts to reduce error using error mitigation and dynamical decoupling, small quantum error correction and fault-tolerant schemes that reduce the high overhead of traditional schemes have also been proposed. According to the recent advancements in fault tolerance, it is possible to minimize the number of ancillary qubits using flags. While implementing those schemes is still impossible, it is worthwhile to bridge the gap between the NISQ era and the FTQC era. Here, we introduce a benchmarking method to test fa…
We review an approach to fault-tolerant holonomic quantum computation on stabilizer codes. We explain its workings as based on adiabatic dragging of the subsystem containing the logical information around suitable loops along which the information remains protected.
We describe a fault-tolerant version of the one-way quantum computer using a cluster state in three spatial dimensions. Topologically protected quantum gates are realized by choosing appropriate boundary conditions on the cluster. We provide equivalence transformations for these boundary conditions that can be used to simplify fault-tolerant circuits and to derive circuit identities in a topological manner. The spatial dimensionality of the scheme can be reduced to two by converting one spatial axis of the cluster into time. The error threshold is 0.75% for each source in an error model with p…
A framework for low-overhead quantum fault tolerance via spacetime lifting
Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, University of Maryland（马里兰大学量子信息与计算科学联合中心）；Shanghai Institute for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences (SIMIS)（上海数学与交叉学科研究院）；Yau Mathematical Sciences Center, Tsinghua University（清华大学丘成桐数学科学中心）
Fault-tolerant quantum computation using quantum error-correcting codes requires fault-tolerant constructions of nontransversal gates. Shor proposed a fault-tolerant construction of a nontransversal gate, i.e., the Toffoli gate for a family of the Calderbank-Shor-Steane codes which has even-weight stabilizer generators and odd-weight logical operators. In fact, as shown in this paper, error propagations in the ancilla preparation of Shor's construction lead to logical errors. This work provides a solution to this problem through the insertion of bit flip error correction. Finally, error rates …
Achieving error rates that meet or exceed the fault-tolerance threshold is a central goal for quantum computing experiments, and measuring these error rates using randomized benchmarking is now routine. However, direct comparison between measured error rates and thresholds is complicated by the fact that benchmarking estimates average error rates while thresholds reflect worst-case behavior when a gate is used as part of a large computation. These two measures of error can differ by orders of magnitude in the regime of interest. Here we facilitate comparison between the experimentally accessib…
The quantum error threshold is the highest (model-dependent) noise rate which we can tolerate and still quantum-compute to arbitrary accuracy. Although noise thresholds are frequently estimated for the Steane seven-qubit, distance-three quantum code, there has been no proof that a constant threshold even exists for distance-three codes. We prove the existence of a constant threshold. The proven threshold is well below estimates, based on simulations and analytic models, of the true threshold, but at least it is now known to be positive.
We discuss how the presence of gauge sub-systems in the Bacon-Shor code [D. Bacon, Phys. Rev. A 73, 012340 (2006)] leads to remarkably simple and efficient methods for fault-tolerant error correction (FTEC). Most notably, FTEC does not require entangled ancillary states and it can be implemented with nearest-neighbor two-qubit measurements. By using these methods, we prove a lower bound on the quantum accuracy threshold, 1.94 \times 10^{-4} for adversarial stochastic noise, that improves previous lower bounds by nearly an order of magnitude.
This is a comprehensive review on fault-tolerant topological quantum computation with the surface codes. The basic concepts and useful tools underlying fault-tolerant quantum computation, such as universal quantum computation, stabilizer formalism, and measurement-based quantum computation, are also provided in a pedagogical way. Topological quantum computation by brading the defects on the surface code is explained in both circuit-based and measurement-based models in such a way that their relation is clear. The interdisciplinary connections between quantum error correction codes and subjects…
We study a comprehensive list of quantum codes as candidates of codes to be used at the bottom, physical, level in a fault-tolerant code architecture. Using the Aliferis-Gottesman-Preskill (AGP) ex-Rec method we calculate the pseudo-threshold for these codes against depolarizing noise at various levels of overhead. We estimate the logical noise rate as a function of overhead at a physical error rate of $p_0=1\times 10^{-4}$. The Bacon-Shor codes and the Golay code are the best performers in our study.
SymFT: Universal Fault-Tolerant Quantum Circuit Simulation via Symbolic Clifford--Pauli Frames and Stabilizer Coordinates
University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；Arclight Quantum Computing Inc.（Arclight量子计算公司）；Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院计算技术研究所）
Fault-tolerant quantum computing based on surface codes has emerged as a popular route to large-scale quantum computers capable of accurate computation even in the presence of noise. Its popularity is, in part, because the fault-tolerance or accuracy threshold for surface codes is believed to be less stringent than competing schemes. This threshold is the noise level below which computational accuracy can be increased by increasing physical resources for noise removal, and is an important engineering target for realising quantum devices. The current conclusions about surface code thresholds ar…
Universal fault-tolerant quantum computers will require the use of efficient protocols to implement encoded operations necessary in the execution of algorithms. In this work, we show how solvers for satisfiability modulo theories (SMT solvers) can be used to automate the construction of Clifford circuits with certain fault-tolerance properties and we apply our techniques to a fault-tolerant magic-state-preparation protocol. Part of the protocol requires converting magic states encoded in the color code to magic states encoded in the surface code. Since the teleportation step involves decoding …
We introduce a differential geometric framework for describing families of quantum error-correcting codes and for understanding quantum fault tolerance. This work unifies the notion of topological fault tolerance with fault tolerance in other kinds of quantum error-correcting codes. In particular, we use fibre bundles with a natural flat projective connection to study the transformation of codewords under unitary fault-tolerant evolutions. We show that the fault-tolerant logical operations are given by the monodromy group for either of two bundles, both of which have flat projective connection…
