We investigate various aspects of operator quantum error-correcting codes or, as we prefer to call them, subsystem codes. We give various methods to derive subsystem codes from classical codes. We give a proof for the existence of subsystem codes using a counting argument similar to the quantum Gilbert-Varshamov bound. We derive linear programming bounds and other upper bounds. We answer the question whether or not there exist [[n,n-2d+2,r>0,d]]<sub>q</sub> subsystem codes. Finally, we compare stabilizer and subsystem codes with respect to the required number of syndrome qudits.
Topological subsystem codes can combine the advantages of both topological codes and subsystem codes. Suchara et al. proposed a framework based on hypergraphs for construction of such codes. They also studied the performance of some subsystem codes. Later Bravyi et al. proposed a subsystem surface code. Building upon these works, we propose efficient decoding algorithms for large classes of subsystem codes on hypergraphs and surfaces. We also propose a construction of the subsystem surface codes that includes the code proposed by Bravyi et al. Our simulations for the subsystem code on the squa…
Subsystem codes protect quantum information by encoding it in a tensor factor of a subspace of the physical state space. Subsystem codes generalize all major quantum error protection schemes, and therefore are especially versatile. This paper introduces numerous constructions of subsystem codes. It is shown how one can derive subsystem codes from classical cyclic codes. Methods to trade the dimensions of subsystem and co-subystem are introduced that maintain or improve the minimum distance. As a consequence, many optimal subsystem codes are obtained. Furthermore, it is shown how given subsyste…
Subsystem codes are the most versatile class of quantum error-correcting codes known to date that combine the best features of all known passive and active error-control schemes. The subsystem code is a subspace of the quantum state space that is decomposed into a tensor product of two vector spaces: the subsystem and the co-subsystem. A generic method to derive subsystem codes from existing subsystem codes is given that allows one to trade the dimensions of subsystem and co-subsystem while maintaining or improving the minimum distance. As a consequence, it is shown that all pure MDS subsystem…
We demonstrate propagation rules of subsystem code constructions by extending, shortening and combining given subsystem codes. Given an $[[n,k,r,d]]_q$ subsystem code, we drive new subsystem codes with parameters $[[n+1,k,r,\geq d]]_q$, $[[n-1,k+1,r,\geq d-1]]_q$, $[[n,k-1,r+1,d]]_q$. The interested readers shall consult our companion papers for upper and lower bounds on subsystem codes parameters, and introduction, trading dimensions, families, and references on subsystem codes [1][2][3] and references therein.
We show how to construct hybrid quantum-classical codes from subsystem codes by encoding the classical information into the gauge qudits using gauge fixing. Unlike previous work on hybrid codes, we allow for two separate minimum distances, one for the quantum information and one for the classical information. We give an explicit construction of hybrid codes from two classical linear codes using Bacon-Casaccino subsystem codes, as well as several new examples of good hybrid code.
Recently, the theory of quantum error control codes has been extended to subsystem codes over symmetric and asymmetric quantum channels -- qubit-flip and phase-shift errors may have equal or different probabilities. Previous work in constructing quantum error control codes has focused on code constructions for symmetric quantum channels. In this paper, we develop a theory and establish the connection between asymmetric quantum codes and subsystem codes. We present families of subsystem and asymmetric quantum codes derived, once again, from classical BCH and RS codes over finite fields. Particu…
Quantum error correction requires the use of error syndromes derived from measurements that may be unreliable. Recently, quantum data-syndrome (QDS) codes have been proposed as a possible approach to protect against both data and syndrome errors, in which a set of linearly dependent stabilizer measurements are performed to increase redundancy. Motivated by wanting to reduce the total number of measurements performed, we introduce QDS subsystem codes, and show that they can outperform similar QDS stabilizer codes derived from them. We also give a construction of single-error-correcting QDS stab…
Subsystem codes are a generalization of noiseless subsystems, decoherence free subspaces, and quantum error-correcting codes. We prove a Singleton bound for GF(q)-linear subsystem codes. It follows that no subsystem code over a prime field can beat the Singleton bound. On the other hand, we show the remarkable fact that there exist impure subsystem codes beating the Hamming bound. A number of open problems concern the comparison in performance of stabilizer and subsystem codes. One of the open problems suggested by Poulin's work asks whether a subsystem code can use fewer syndrome measurements…
In this paper we investigate the encoding of operator quantum error correcting codes i.e. subsystem codes. We show that encoding of subsystem codes can be reduced to encoding of a related stabilizer code making it possible to use all the known results on encoding of stabilizer codes. Along the way we also show how Clifford codes can be encoded. We also show that gauge qubits can be exploited to reduce the encoding complexity.
Ashikhmin and Litsyn showed that all binary stabilizer codes - pure or impure - of sufficiently large length obey the quantum Hamming bound, ruling out the possibility that impure codes of large length can outperform pure codes with respect to sphere packing. In contrast we show that impure subsystem codes do not obey the quantum Hamming bound for pure subsystem codes, not even asymptotically. We show that there exist arbitrarily long Bacon-Shor codes that violate the quantum Hamming bound.
Topological subsystem codes were proposed by Bombin based on 3-face-colorable cubic graphs. Suchara, Bravyi and Terhal generalized this construction and proposed a method to construct topological subsystem codes using 3-valent hypergraphs that satisfy certain constraints. Finding such hypergraphs and computing their parameters however is a nontrivial task. We propose families of topological subsystem codes that were previously not known. In particular, our constructions give codes which cannot be derived from Bombin's construction. We also study the error recovery schemes for the proposed subs…
The essential insight of quantum error correction was that quantum information can be protected by suitably encoding this quantum information across multiple independently erred quantum systems. Recently it was realized that, since the most general method for encoding quantum information is to encode it into a subsystem, there exists a novel form of quantum error correction beyond the traditional quantum error correcting subspace codes. These new quantum error correcting subsystem codes differ from subspace codes in that their quantum correcting routines can be considerably simpler than relate…
It is conjectured that quantum computers are able to solve certain problems more quickly than any deterministic or probabilistic computer. A quantum computer exploits the rules of quantum mechanics to speed up computations. However, it is a formidable task to build a quantum computer, since the quantum mechanical systems storing the information unavoidably interact with their environment. Therefore, one has to mitigate the resulting noise and decoherence effects to avoid computational errors. In this work, I study various aspects of quantum error control codes -- the key component of fault-tol…
We introduce a family of 2D topological subsystem quantum error-correcting codes. The gauge group is generated by 2-local Pauli operators, so that 2-local measurements are enough to recover the error syndrome. We study the computational power of code deformation in these codes, and show that boundaries cannot be introduced in the usual way. In addition, we give a general mapping connecting suitable classical statistical mechanical models to optimal error correction in subsystem stabilizer codes that suffer from depolarizing noise.
Codeword stabilized quantum codes provide a unified approach to constructing quantum error-correcting codes, including both additive and non-additive quantum codes. Standard codeword stabilized quantum codes encode quantum information into subspaces. The more general notion of encoding quantum information into a subsystem is known as an operator (or subsystem) quantum error correcting code. Most operator codes studied to date are based in the usual stabilizer formalism. We introduce operator quantum codes based on the codeword stabilized quantum code framework. Based on the necessary and suffi…
We present general conditions for quantum error suppression for Hamiltonian-based quantum computation using subsystem codes. This involves encoding the Hamiltonian performing the computation using an error detecting subsystem code and the addition of a penalty term that commutes with the encoded Hamiltonian. The scheme is general and includes the stabilizer formalism of both subspace and subsystem codes as special cases. We derive performance bounds and show that complete error suppression results in the large penalty limit. To illustrate the power of subsystem-based error suppression, we intr…
Given any two classical codes with parameters $[n_1,k,d_1]$ and $[n_2,k,d_2]$, we show how to construct a quantum subsystem code in 2-dimensions with parameters $[[N,K,D]]$ satisfying $N\le 2n_1n_2$, $K=k$, and $D=\min(d_1,d_2)$. These quantum codes are in the class of generalized Bacon-Shor codes introduced by Bravyi. We note that constructions of good classical codes can be used to construct quantum codes that saturate Bravyi's bound $KD=O(N)$ on the code parameters of 2-dimensional subsystem codes. One of these good constructions uses classical expander codes. This construction has the addi…
We provide a numerical investigation of two families of subsystem quantum codes that are related to hypergraph product codes by gauge-fixing. The first family consists of the Bravyi-Bacon-Shor (BBS) codes which have optimal code parameters for subsystem quantum codes local in 2-dimensions. The second family consists of the constant rate "generalized Shor" codes of Bacon and Cassicino \cite{bacon2006quantum}, which we re-brand as subsystem hypergraph product (SHP) codes. We show that any hypergraph product code can be obtained by entangling the gauge qubits of two SHP codes. To evaluate the per…
Toric code made subsystem: a framework for topological subsystem codes using anticommuting quantum spin liquids
Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University（莱斯大学斯莫利-柯尔研究所）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University（莱斯大学物理与天文系）；Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay（印度孟买理工学院物理系）
A promising approach to overcome decoherence in quantum computing schemes is to perform active quantum error correction using topology. Topological subsystem codes incorporate both the benefits of topological and subsystem codes, allowing for error syndrome recovery with only 2-local measurements in a two-dimensional array of qubits. We study the error threshold for topological subsystem color codes under very general external noise conditions. By transforming the problem into a classical disordered spin model, we estimate using Monte Carlo simulations that topological subsystem codes have an …
We investigate the most general notion of a private quantum code, which involves the encoding of qubits into quantum subsystems and subspaces. We contribute to the structure theory for private quantum codes by deriving testable conditions for private quantum subsystems in terms of Kraus operators for channels; establishing an analogue of the Knill-Laflamme conditions in this setting. For a large class of naturally arising quantum channels, we show that private subsystems can exist even in the absence of private subspaces. In doing so, we also discover the first examples of private subsystems t…
We introduce a technique that uses gauge fixing to significantly improve the quantum error correcting performance of subsystem codes. By changing the order in which check operators are measured, valuable additional information can be gained, and we introduce a new method for decoding which uses this information to improve performance. Applied to the subsystem toric code with three-qubit check operators, we increase the threshold under circuit-level depolarising noise from $0.67\%$ to $0.81\%$. The threshold increases further under a circuit-level noise model with small finite bias, up to $2.22…
We study subsystem codes whose gauge group has local generators in the 2D geometry. It is shown that there exists a family of such codes defined on lattices of size LxL with the number of logical qubits k and the minimum distance d both proportional to L. The gauge group of these codes involves only two-qubit generators of type XX and ZZ coupling nearest neighbor qubits (and some auxiliary one-qubit generators). Our proof is not constructive as it relies on a certain version of the Gilbert-Varshamov bound for classical codes. Along the way we introduce and study properties of generalized Bacon…
Topological subsystem color codes (TSCCs) are an important class of topological subsystem codes that allow for syndrome measurement with only 2-body measurements. It is expected that such low complexity measurements can help in fault tolerance. While TSCCs have been studied over depolarizing noise model, their performance over the erasure channel has not been studied as much. Recently, we proposed erasure decoders for TSCCs and reported a threshold of 9.7%. In this paper, we continue our study of TSCCS over the erasure channel. We propose two erasure decoders for topological subsystem color co…
Topological subsystem codes proposed recently by Bombin are quantum error correcting codes defined on a two-dimensional grid of qubits that permit reliable quantum information storage with a constant error threshold. These codes require only the measurement of two-qubit nearest-neighbor operators for error correction. In this paper we demonstrate that topological subsystem codes (TSCs) can be viewed as generalizations of Kitaev's honeycomb model to trivalent hypergraphs. This new connection provides a systematic way of constructing TSCs and analyzing their properties. We also derive a necessar…
Leakage is a particularly damaging error that occurs when a qubit state falls out of its two-level computational subspace. Compared to independent depolarizing noise, leaked qubits may produce many more configurations of harmful correlated errors during error-correction. In this work, we investigate different local codes in the low-error regime of a leakage gate error model. When restricting to bare-ancilla extraction, we observe that subsystem codes are good candidates for handling leakage, as their locality can limit damaging correlated errors. As a case study, we compare subspace surface co…
We study a mechanism whereby quantum information present in the initial state of a quantum many-body system can be protected for arbitrary times due to a combination of symmetry and spatial locality. Remarkably, the mechanism is sufficiently generic that the dynamics can be fully ergodic upon resolving the protecting symmetry and fixing the encoded quantum state, resulting in an infinite-temperature quantum memory. After exemplifying the mechanism in a strongly nonintegrable two-dimensional (2D) spin model inspired by the surface code, we find it has a natural interpretation in the language of…
Recent work on approximate quantum error correction (QEC) has opened up the possibility of constructing subspace codes that protect information with high fidelity in scenarios where perfect error correction is impossible. Motivated by this, we investigate the problem of approximate subsystem codes. Subsystem codes extend the standard formalism of subspace QEC to codes in which only a subsystem within a subspace of states is used to store information in a noise-resilient fashion. Here, we demonstrate easily checkable sufficient conditions for the existence of approximate subsystem codes. Furthe…
A long-standing open problem in fault-tolerant quantum computation has been to find a universal set of transversal gates. As three of us proved in arXiv: 0706.1382, such a set does not exist for binary stabilizer codes. Here we generalize our work to show that for subsystem stabilizer codes in $d$ dimensional Hilbert space, such a universal set of transversal gates cannot exist for even one encoded qudit, for any dimension $d$, prime or nonprime. This result strongly supports the idea that other primitives, such as quantum teleportation, are necessary for universal fault-tolerant quantum compu…
We describe a general method for turning quantum circuits into sparse quantum subsystem codes. The idea is to turn each circuit element into a set of low-weight gauge generators that enforce the input-output relations of that circuit element. Using this prescription, we can map an arbitrary stabilizer code into a new subsystem code with the same distance and number of encoded qubits but where all the generators have constant weight, at the cost of adding some ancilla qubits. With an additional overhead of ancilla qubits, the new code can also be made spatially local. Applying our construction …
Quantum error correction allows for faulty quantum systems to behave in an effectively error free manner. One important class of techniques for quantum error correction is the class of quantum subsystem codes, which are relevant both to active quantum error correcting schemes as well as to the design of self-correcting quantum memories. Previous approaches for investigating these codes have focused on applying theoretical analysis to look for interesting codes and to investigate their properties. In this paper we present an alternative approach that uses computational analysis to accomplish th…
We introduce a framework to decompose a bosonic mode into two virtual subsystems-a logical qubit and a gauge mode. This framework allows the entire toolkit of qubit-based quantum information to be applied in the continuous-variable setting. We give a detailed example based on a modular decomposition of the position basis and apply it in two situations. First, we decompose Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill grid states and find that the encoded logical state can be damaged due to entanglement with the gauge mode. Second, we identify and disentangle qubit cluster states hidden inside of Gaussian continuo…
We evaluate the usefulness of holographic stabilizer codes for practical purposes by studying their allowed sets of fault-tolerantly implementable gates. We treat them as subsystem codes and show that the set of transversally implementable logical operations is contained in the Clifford group for sufficiently localized logical subsystems. As well as proving this concretely for several specific codes, we argue that this restriction naturally arises in any stabilizer subsystem code that comes close to capturing certain properties of holography. We extend these results to approximate encodings, l…
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.
We discuss and review several thermodynamic criteria that have been introduced to characterize the thermal stability of a self-correcting quantum memory. We first examine the use of symmetry-breaking fields in analyzing the properties of self-correcting quantum memories in the thermodynamic limit: we show that the thermal expectation values of all logical operators vanish for any stabilizer and any subsystem code in any spatial dimension. On the positive side, we generalize the results in [R. Alicki et al., arXiv:0811.0033] to obtain a general upper bound on the relaxation rate of a quantum me…
We introduce a new topological quantum code, the three-dimensional subsystem toric code (3D STC), which is a generalization of the stabilizer toric code. The 3D STC can be realized by measuring geometrically-local parity checks of weight at most three on the cubic lattice with open boundary conditions. We prove that single-shot quantum error correction (QEC) is possible with the 3D STC, i.e., one round of local parity-check measurements suffices to perform reliable QEC even in the presence of measurement errors. We also propose an efficient single-shot QEC strategy for the 3D STC and investiga…
The importance of quantum error correction in paving the way to build a practical quantum computer is no longer in doubt. This dissertation makes a threefold contribution to the mathematical theory of quantum error-correcting codes. Firstly, it extends the framework of an important class of quantum codes -- nonbinary stabilizer codes. It clarifies the connections of stabilizer codes to classical codes over quadratic extension fields, provides many new constructions of quantum codes, and develops further the theory of optimal quantum codes and punctured quantum codes. Secondly, it contributes t…
We propose a simplified version of the Kitaev's surface code in which error correction requires only three-qubit parity measurements for Pauli operators XXX and ZZZ. The new code belongs to the class of subsystem stabilizer codes. It inherits many favorable properties of the standard surface code such as encoding of multiple logical qubits on a planar lattice with punctured holes, efficient decoding by either minimum-weight matching or renormalization group methods, and high error threshold. The new subsystem surface code (SSC) gives rise to an exactly solvable Hamiltonian with 3-qubit interac…
We study noiseless subsystems on collective rotation channels of qudits, i.e., quantum channels with operators in the set ${\mathcal E}(d,n) = \{ U^{\otimes n}: U \in {\mathrm{SU}}(d)\}.$ This is done by analyzing the decomposition of the algebra ${\mathcal A}(d,n)$ generated by ${\mathcal E}(d,n)$. We summarize the results for the channels on qubits ($d=2$), and obtain the maximum dimension of the noiseless subsystem that can be used as the quantum error correction code for the channel. Then we extend our results to general $d$. In particular, it is shown that the code rate, i.e., the number …
We introduce a model of three-dimensional (3D) topological order enriched by planar subsystem symmetries. The model is constructed starting from the 3D toric code, whose ground state can be viewed as an equal-weight superposition of two-dimensional (2D) membrane coverings. We then decorate those membranes with 2D cluster states possessing symmetry-protected topological order under line-like subsystem symmetries. This endows the decorated model with planar subsystem symmetries under which the loop-like excitations of the toric code fractionalize, resulting in an extensive degeneracy per unit le…
Continuous-variable (CV) cluster states are a universal resource for fault-tolerant quantum computation when supplemented with the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) bosonic code. We generalize the recently introduced subsystem decomposition of a bosonic code [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 040501 (2020)], and we use it to analyze CV cluster-state quantum computing with GKP states. Specifically, we decompose squeezed vacuum states and approximate GKP states to reveal their encoded logical information, and we decompose several gates crucial to CV cluster-state quantum computing. Then, we use the subsystem …
The most general method for encoding quantum information is not to encode the information into a subspace of a Hilbert space, but to encode information into a subsystem of a Hilbert space. Recently this notion has led to a more general notion of quantum error correction known as operator quantum error correction. In standard quantum error correcting codes, one requires the ability to apply a procedure which exactly reverses on the error correcting subspace any correctable error. In contrast, for operator error correcting subsystems, the correction procedure need not undo the error which has oc…
This paper addresses and expands on the contents of the recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 030502 (2013)] discussing private quantum subsystems. Here we prove several previously presented results, including a condition for a given random unitary channel to not have a private subspace (although this does not mean that private communication cannot occur, as was previously demonstrated via private subsystems) and algebraic conditions that characterize when a general quantum subsystem or subspace code is private for a quantum channel. These conditions can be regarded as the private analogue of t…
