Single-shot error correction with the gauge color code

December 10, 2015
Benjamin Brown | University of Copenhagen

The gauge color code is a quantum error-correcting code with local syndrome measurements that, remarkably, admits a universal transversal gate set without the need for resource-intensive magic state distillation. A result of recent interest, proposed by Bombin, shows that the subsystem structure of the gauge color code admits an error-correction protocol that achieves tolerance to noisy measurements without the need for repeated measurements, so called single-shot error correction. This offers many exciting advantages over standard methods of error correction. For instance, it will decrease the depth of quantum circuits, and it will in turn reduce computational overheads. Here, we demonstrate further benefits single-shot error correction by designing a decoding algorithm to investigate its threshold error rates. We estimate a threshold error rate of ~0.31% for a phenomenological noise model using a simple decoding algorithm which, surprisingly, lies within an order of magnitude of other leading methods of realising fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Speaker Details

Benjamin Brown works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Niels Bohr International Academy at the University of Copenhagen. His research concerns quantum error correction, self-correcting quantum memories, and the study of topological phases of matter. Prior to his position in Copenhagen, Ben held a postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College London. This followed the completion of his Ph.D. at Imperial College in 2013 at the Controlled Quantum Dynamics Centre for Doctoral Training.