Ultrahigh Error Threshold for Surface Codes with Biased Noise

We show that a simple modification of the surface code can exhibit an enormous gain in the error correction threshold for a noise model in which Pauli Z errors occur more frequently than X or Y errors. Such biased noise, where dephasing dominates, is ubiquitous in many quantum architectures. In the limit of pure dephasing noise we find a threshold of 43.7(1)% using a tensor network decoder proposed by Bravyi, Suchara and Vargo. The threshold remains surprisingly large in the regime of realistic noise bias ratios, for example 28.2(2)% at a bias of 10. The performance is in fact at or near the hashing bound for all values of the bias. The modified surface code still uses only weight-4 stabilizers on a square lattice, but merely requires measuring products of Y instead of Z around the faces, as this doubles the number of useful syndrome bits associated with the dominant Z errors. Our results demonstrate that large efficiency gains can be found by appropriately tailoring codes and decoders to realistic noise models, even under the locality constraints of topological codes.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, comments welcome; v2 includes minor improvements to the numerical results, additional references, and an extended discussion; v3 published version (incorporating supplementary material into main body of paper

Adiabatic Gate Teleportation

The difficulty in producing precisely timed and controlled quantum gates is a significant source of error in many physical implementations of quantum computers. Here we introduce a simple universal primitive, adiabatic gate teleportation, which is robust to timing errors and many control errors and maintains a constant energy gap throughout the computation above a degenerate ground state space. Notably this construction allows for geometric robustness based upon the control of two independent qubit interactions. Further, our piecewise adiabatic evolution easily relates to the quantum circuit model, enabling the use of standard methods from fault-tolerance theory for establishing thresholds.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, with additional 3 pages and 2 figures in an appendix. v2 Refs added. Video abstract available at http://www.quantiki.org/video_abstracts/0905090

Tailored codes for small quantum memories

We demonstrate that small quantum memories, realized via quantum error correction in multi-qubit devices, can benefit substantially by choosing a quantum code that is tailored to the relevant error model of the system. For a biased noise model, with independent bit and phase flips occurring at different rates, we show that a single code greatly outperforms the well-studied Steane code across the full range of parameters of the noise model, including for unbiased noise. In fact, this tailored code performs almost optimally when compared with 10,000 randomly selected stabilizer codes of comparable experimental complexity. Tailored codes can even outperform the Steane code with realistic experimental noise, and without any increase in the experimental complexity, as we demonstrate by comparison in the observed error model in a recent 7-qubit trapped ion experiment.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, supplementary material; v2 published versio

Graphical calculus for Gaussian pure states

We provide a unified graphical calculus for all Gaussian pure states, including graph transformation rules for all local and semi-local Gaussian unitary operations, as well as local quadrature measurements. We then use this graphical calculus to analyze continuous-variable (CV) cluster states, the essential resource for one-way quantum computing with CV systems. Current graphical approaches to CV cluster states are only valid in the unphysical limit of infinite squeezing, and the associated graph transformation rules only apply when the initial and final states are of this form. Our formalism applies to all Gaussian pure states and subsumes these rules in a natural way. In addition, the term "CV graph state" currently has several inequivalent definitions in use. Using this formalism we provide a single unifying definition that encompasses all of them. We provide many examples of how the formalism may be used in the context of CV cluster states: defining the "closest" CV cluster state to a given Gaussian pure state and quantifying the error in the approximation due to finite squeezing; analyzing the optimality of certain methods of generating CV cluster states; drawing connections between this new graphical formalism and bosonic Hamiltonians with Gaussian ground states, including those useful for CV one-way quantum computing; and deriving a graphical measure of bipartite entanglement for certain classes of CV cluster states. We mention other possible applications of this formalism and conclude with a brief note on fault tolerance in CV one-way quantum computing.Comment: (v3) shortened title, very minor corrections (v2) minor corrections, reference added, new figures for CZ gate and beamsplitter graph rules; (v1) 25 pages, 11 figures (made with TikZ

Toric codes and quantum doubles from two-body Hamiltonians

We present here a procedure to obtain the Hamiltonians of the toric code and Kitaev quantum double models as the low-energy limits of entirely two-body Hamiltonians. Our construction makes use of a new type of perturbation gadget based on error-detecting subsystem codes. The procedure is motivated by a projected entangled pair states (PEPS) description of the target models, and reproduces the target models' behavior using only couplings that are natural in terms of the original Hamiltonians. This allows our construction to capture the symmetries of the target models

Ultracompact Generation of Continuous-Variable Cluster States

We propose an experimental scheme that has the potential for large-scale realization of continuous-variable (CV) cluster states for universal quantum computation. We do this by mapping CV cluster-state graphs onto two-mode squeezing graphs, which can be engineered into a single optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The desired CV cluster state is produced directly from a joint squeezing operation on the vacuum using a multi-frequency pump beam. This method has potential for ultracompact experimental implementation. As an illustration, we detail an experimental proposal for creating a four-mode square CV cluster state with a single OPO.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; v2 improved discussion of the implications of our result; added discussion of finite squeezing effect

Tailoring surface codes for highly biased noise

The surface code, with a simple modification, exhibits ultra-high error correction thresholds when the noise is biased towards dephasing. Here, we identify features of the surface code responsible for these ultra-high thresholds. We provide strong evidence that the threshold error rate of the surface code tracks the hashing bound exactly for all biases, and show how to exploit these features to achieve significant improvement in logical failure rate. First, we consider the infinite bias limit, meaning pure dephasing. We prove that the error threshold of the modified surface code for pure dephasing noise is $50\%$, i.e., that all qubits are fully dephased, and this threshold can be achieved by a polynomial time decoding algorithm. We demonstrate that the sub-threshold behavior of the code depends critically on the precise shape and boundary conditions of the code. That is, for rectangular surface codes with standard rough/smooth open boundaries, it is controlled by the parameter $g=\gcd(j,k)$, where $j$ and $k$ are dimensions of the surface code lattice. We demonstrate a significant improvement in logical failure rate with pure dephasing for co-prime codes that have $g=1$, and closely-related rotated codes, which have a modified boundary. The effect is dramatic: the same logical failure rate achievable with a square surface code and $n$ physical qubits can be obtained with a co-prime or rotated surface code using only $O(\sqrt{n})$ physical qubits. Finally, we use approximate maximum likelihood decoding to demonstrate that this improvement persists for a general Pauli noise biased towards dephasing. In particular, comparing with a square surface code, we observe a significant improvement in logical failure rate against biased noise using a rotated surface code with approximately half the number of physical qubits.Comment: 18+4 pages, 24 figures; v2 includes additional coauthor (ASD) and new results on the performance of surface codes in the finite-bias regime, obtained with beveled surface codes and an improved tensor network decoder; v3 published versio

Entanglement and the Power of One Qubit

The "Power of One Qubit" refers to a computational model that has access to only one pure bit of quantum information, along with n qubits in the totally mixed state. This model, though not as powerful as a pure-state quantum computer, is capable of performing some computational tasks exponentially faster than any known classical algorithm. One such task is to estimate with fixed accuracy the normalized trace of a unitary operator that can be implemented efficiently in a quantum circuit. We show that circuits of this type generally lead to entangled states, and we investigate the amount of entanglement possible in such circuits, as measured by the multiplicative negativity. We show that the multiplicative negativity is bounded by a constant, independent of n, for all bipartite divisions of the n+1 qubits, and so becomes, when n is large, a vanishingly small fraction of the maximum possible multiplicative negativity for roughly equal divisions. This suggests that the global nature of entanglement is a more important resource for quantum computation than the magnitude of the entanglement.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figure