Flag fault-tolerant error correction with arbitrary distance codes

In this paper we introduce a general fault-tolerant quantum error correction protocol using flag circuits for measuring stabilizers of arbitrary distance codes. In addition to extending flag error correction beyond distance-three codes for the first time, our protocol also applies to a broader class of distance-three codes than was previously known. Flag circuits use extra ancilla qubits to signal when errors resulting from $v$ faults in the circuit have weight greater than $v$. The flag error correction protocol is applicable to stabilizer codes of arbitrary distance which satisfy a set of conditions and uses fewer qubits than other schemes such as Shor, Steane and Knill error correction. We give examples of infinite code families which satisfy these conditions and analyze the behaviour of distance-three and -five examples numerically. Requiring fewer resources than Shor error correction, flag error correction could potentially be used in low-overhead fault-tolerant error correction protocols using low density parity check quantum codes of large code length.Comment: 29 pages (18 pages main text), 22 figures, 7 tables. Comments welcome! V3 represents the version accepted to quantu

Quantum Error Correction and Fault-Tolerance

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.Comment: 8 pages, to appear in Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Physic

Quantum Convolutional Error Correction Codes

I report two general methods to construct quantum convolutional codes for quantum registers with internal $N$ states. Using one of these methods, I construct a quantum convolutional code of rate 1/4 which is able to correct one general quantum error for every eight consecutive quantum registers.Comment: To be reported in the 1st NASA Conf. on Quantum Comp., uses llncs.sty, 12 page

Quantum Error Correction for Quantum Memories

Active quantum error correction using qubit stabilizer codes has emerged as a promising, but experimentally challenging, engineering program for building a universal quantum computer. In this review we consider the formalism of qubit stabilizer and subsystem stabilizer codes and their possible use in protecting quantum information in a quantum memory. We review the theory of fault-tolerance and quantum error-correction, discuss examples of various codes and code constructions, the general quantum error correction conditions, the noise threshold, the special role played by Clifford gates and the route towards fault-tolerant universal quantum computation. The second part of the review is focused on providing an overview of quantum error correction using two-dimensional (topological) codes, in particular the surface code architecture. We discuss the complexity of decoding and the notion of passive or self-correcting quantum memories. The review does not focus on a particular technology but discusses topics that will be relevant for various quantum technologies.Comment: Final version: 47 pages, 17 Figs, 311 reference

New Parameters of Linear Codes Expressing Security Performance of Universal Secure Network Coding

The universal secure network coding presented by Silva et al. realizes secure and reliable transmission of a secret message over any underlying network code, by using maximum rank distance codes. Inspired by their result, this paper considers the secure network coding based on arbitrary linear codes, and investigates its security performance and error correction capability that are guaranteed independently of the underlying network code. The security performance and error correction capability are said to be universal when they are independent of underlying network codes. This paper introduces new code parameters, the relative dimension/intersection profile (RDIP) and the relative generalized rank weight (RGRW) of linear codes. We reveal that the universal security performance and universal error correction capability of secure network coding are expressed in terms of the RDIP and RGRW of linear codes. The security and error correction of existing schemes are also analyzed as applications of the RDIP and RGRW.Comment: IEEEtran.cls, 8 pages, no figure. To appear in Proc. 50th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing (Allerton 2012). Version 2 added an exact expression of the universal error correction capability in terms of the relative generalized rank weigh

Concatenated Turbo/LDPC codes for deep space communications: performance and implementation

Deep space communications require error correction codes able to reach extremely low bit-error-rates, possibly with a steep waterfall region and without error floor. Several schemes have been proposed in the literature to achieve these goals. Most of them rely on the concatenation of different codes that leads to high hardware implementation complexity and poor resource sharing. This work proposes a scheme based on the concatenation of non-custom LDPC and turbo codes that achieves excellent error correction performance. Moreover, since both LDPC and turbo codes can be decoded with the BCJR algorithm, our preliminary results show that an efficient hardware architecture with high resource reuse can be designe