Low-overhead surface code logical Hadamard

We present an improved low-overhead implementation of surface code logical H. We describe in full detail logical H applied to a single distance 7 double-defect logical qubit in an otherwise idle scalable array such qubits. Our goal is to provide a clear description of logical H and to emphasize that the surface code possesses low-overhead implementations of the entire Clifford group.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, published versio

Accurate simulations of planar topological codes cannot use cyclic boundaries

Cyclic boundaries are used in many branches of physics and mathematics, typically to assist the approximation of a large space. We show that when determining the performance of planar, fault-tolerant, topological quantum error correction, using cyclic boundaries leads to a significant underestimate of the logical error rate. We present cyclic and non-cyclic surface code simulations exhibiting this discrepancy, and analytic formulae precisely reproducing the observed behavior in the limit of low physical error. These asymptotic formulae are then used to prove that the underestimate is exponentially large in the code distance d at any fixed physical error rate p below the threshold error rate p_th.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, initial referee comments incorporate

Optimal complexity correction of correlated errors in the surface code

The surface code is designed to suppress errors in quantum computing hardware and currently offers the most believable pathway to large-scale quantum computation. The surface code requires a 2-D array of nearest-neighbor coupled qubits that are capable of implementing a universal set of gates with error rates below approximately 1%, requirements compatible with experimental reality. Consequently, a number of authors are attempting to squeeze additional performance out of the surface code. We describe an optimal complexity error suppression algorithm, parallelizable to O(1) given constant computing resources per unit area, and provide evidence that this algorithm exploits correlations in the error models of each gate in an asymptotically optimal manner.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figure

Coping with qubit leakage in topological codes

Many physical systems considered promising qubit candidates are not, in fact, two-level systems. Such systems can leak out of the preferred computational states, leading to errors on any qubits that interact with leaked qubits. Without specific methods of dealing with leakage, long-lived leakage can lead to time-correlated errors. We study the impact of such time-correlated errors on topological quantum error correction codes, which are considered highly practical codes, using the repetition code as a representative case study. We show that, under physically reasonable assumptions, a threshold error rate still exists, however performance is significantly degraded. We then describe simple additional quantum circuitry that, when included in the error detection cycle, restores performance to acceptable levels.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures, comments welcom

Flexible layout of surface code computations using AutoCCZ states

We construct a self-correcting CCZ state (the "AutoCCZ") with embedded delayed choice CZs for completing gate teleportations. Using the AutoCCZ state we create efficient surface code spacetime layouts for both a depth-limited circuit (a ripply-carry addition) and a Clifford-limited circuit (a QROM read). Our layouts account for distillation and routing, are based on plausible physical assumptions for a large-scale superconducting qubit platform, and suggest that circuit-level Toffoli parallelism (e.g. using a carry-lookahead adder instead of a ripple-carry adder) will not reduce the execution time of computations involving fewer than five million physical qubits. We reduce the spacetime volume of delayed choice CZs by a factor of 4 compared to techniques from previous work (Fowler 2012), and make several improvements to the CCZ magic state factory from (Gidney 2019).Comment: 16 pages, 18 figure

A leakage-resilient approach to fault-tolerant quantum computing with superconducting elements

Superconducting qubits, while promising for scalability and long coherence times, contain more than two energy levels, and therefore are susceptible to errors generated by the leakage of population outside of the computational subspace. Such leakage errors constitute a prominent roadblock towards fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC) with superconducting qubits. FTQC using topological codes is based on sequential measurements of multiqubit stabilizer operators. Here, we first propose a leakage-resilient procedure to perform repetitive measurements of multiqubit stabilizer operators, and then use this scheme as an ingredient to develop a leakage-resilient approach for surface code quantum error correction with superconducting circuits. Our protocol is based on swap operations between data and ancilla qubits at the end of every cycle, requiring read-out and reset operations on every physical qubit in the system, and thereby preventing persistent leakage errors from occurring.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. PRA versio

Quantifying the effects of local many-qubit errors and non-local two-qubit errors on the surface code

Topological quantum error correction codes are known to be able to tolerate arbitrary local errors given sufficient qubits. This includes correlated errors involving many local qubits. In this work, we quantify this level of tolerance, numerically studying the effects of many-qubit errors on the performance of the surface code. We find that if increasingly large area errors are at least moderately exponentially suppressed, arbitrarily reliable quantum computation can still be achieved with practical overhead. We furthermore quantify the effect of non-local two-qubit correlated errors, which would be expected in arrays of qubits coupled by a polynomially decaying interaction, and when using many-qubit coupling devices. We surprisingly find that the surface code is very robust to this class of errors, despite a provable lack of a threshold error rate when such errors are present.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, extra material and expanded author lis

Checking the error correction strength of arbitrary surface code logical gates

Topologically quantum error corrected logical gates are complex. Chains of errors can form in space and time and diagonally in spacetime. It is highly nontrivial to determine whether a given logical gate is free of low weight combinations of errors leading to failure. We report a new tool Nestcheck capable of analyzing an arbitrary topological computation and determining the minimum number of errors required to cause failure.Comment: 12 pages, 31 figures, comments welcom

Time-optimal quantum computation

Given any quantum error correcting code permitting universal fault-tolerant quantum computation and transversal measurement of logical X and Z, we describe how to perform time-optimal quantum computation, meaning the execution of an arbitrary Clifford circuit followed by a layer of independent T gates and any necessary feedforward measurement determined corrective S gates all in the time of a single physical measurement. We assume fast classical processing and classical communication, and argue the reasonableness of this assumption. This enables fault-tolerant quantum computation to be performed orders of magnitude faster than previously thought possible, with the execution time independent of the error correction strength.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures, manuscript now describes how to achieve time-optimal quantum computation in any QEC code supporting fault-tolerant universal quantum computation that also permits transversal logical X and Z measuremen

Polyestimate: instantaneous open source surface code analysis

The surface code is highly practical, enabling arbitrarily reliable quantum computation given a 2-D nearest-neighbor coupled array of qubits with gate error rates below approximately 1%. We describe an open source library, Polyestimate, enabling a user with no knowledge of the surface code to specify realistic physical quantum gate error models and obtain logical error rate estimates. Functions allowing the user to specify simple depolarizing error rates for each gate have also been included. Every effort has been made to make this library user-friendly.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure