Work

Fault tolerance against amplitude-damping noise using Bacon-Shor codes

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Designing efficient fault-tolerance schemes is crucial for building useful quantum computers. Most standard schemes assume no knowledge of the underlying device noise and rely on general-purpose quantum error-correcting (QEC) codes capable of handling arbitrary errors. Biased-noise alternatives focus on only correcting a subset of some generic error basis (e.g., Pauli error basis) and lower resource needs by channeling the redundancy to dealing only with that subset. Yet, the most resource-efficient codes are expected to be those that directly target the specific noise process that afflicts the quantum device, rather than using a generic error-basis description. However, the question of whether such noise-adapted QEC protocols are amenable to fault-tolerant implementations remains largely unexplored. Here, we design a fault-tolerance scheme based on the Bacon-Shor codes that can protect against amplitude-damping noise in the device. We construct a universal set of logical gadgets tolerant to multiple damping errors and estimate the fault-tolerance threshold of our scheme. Our work thus establishes the possibility of achieving fault tolerance against amplitude-damping noise using noise-adapted quantum codes, while highlighting some of the unique challenges that arise in this context.

Source: Physical Review Research

DOI: 10.1103/89td-45nl

Authors: Long D. H. My, Akshaya Jayashankar, Prabha Mandayam, Hui Khoon Ng

Institutions: Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Yale-NUS College, TCG Crest, Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Language: English

Topic: Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,625

Funders: National Research Foundation Singapore, Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India