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Majorana stabilizer code[1]

Description

A stabilizer code whose stabilizers are products of an even number of Majorana fermion operators, analogous to Pauli strings for a traditional stabilizer code and referred to as Majorana stabilizers. The codespace is the mutual \(+1\) eigenspace of all Majorana stabilizers.

Codes can be denoted as \([[n,k,d]]_{f}\) [2], where \(n\) is the number of fermionic modes (equivalently, \(2n\) Majorana modes). Two copies of an \(n\)-Majorana mode code may be combined to form a single \(n\)-fermion code by using one copy for the real parts of each fermion, and the other copy for the imaginary parts [3]. Codes that admit a logical operator of even (odd) weight are called even (odd) Majorana codes [4]. Even Majorana codes encode logical qubits, and odd Majorana codes have at least one logical Majorana fermion.

In some cases, Majorana-based stabilizer codes are designed to protect against fermionic noise [5] and are thus useful for physical platforms based on fermions. In other cases, Majorana-based frameworks are helpful for understanding conventional qubit stabilizer codes designed for qubit-based platforms.

Protection

Detects products of Majorana operators with weight up to \(d-1\). Physically, protects against dephasing errors caused by coupling of fermion density to the environment and bit-flip errors caused by quasiparticle poisoning processes.

Code bounds have been developed for small codes [6]. LP bounds for Majorana codes have been developed based on the identification of Majorana operators with the Clifford algebra [7].

Encoding

Unitary encoding using fermionic Clifford operations [8].

Transversal Gates

Transversal Clifford operations are discussed in Ref. [4].

Gates

Some gates can be implemented through braiding of the computational anyons. Circuit-based gates can be converted into braid patterns via quantum compiling algorithms [9].

Cousins

  • Dual linear code— Classical self-orthogonal codes can be used to construct Majorana stabilizer codes [2,10,11]. The direct relationship between the two codes follows from expressing the Majorana strings as binary vectors – akin to the symplectic representation – and observing that the binary stabilizer matrix \(S\) for such a Majorana stabilizer code satisfies \(S\cdot S^T=0\) because it has commuting stabilizers, which is precisely the condition \(G\cdot G^T=0\) on the generator matrix \(G\) of a self-orthogonal classical code. A self-orthogonal classical code \(C\) with parameters \([2N,k,d]\) yields a Majorana stabilizer code with parameters \([[N,N-k,d^\perp]]_f\), where \(d^\perp\) is the code distance of the dual code \(C^\perp\).
  • Qubit CSS code— Every \([[n,k,d]]_f\) Majorana stabilizer code is associated with a \([[2n,2k,d]]\) self-dual qubit CSS code [1; Lemma 2].
  • Linear binary code— When constructing a Majorana stabilizer code from a self-orthogonal classical code with an odd number of bits and generator matrix \(G\), a more complex procedure must be applied to ensure that the fermion code has an even number of Majorana zero modes, and thus a physical Hilbert space [1,2]. Rather than taking \(G\) to be the stabilizer matrix as in the even case, we take \(G\oplus G\). This is a concatenation of classical codes as in the CSS construction and it yields a mapping \([2n-1,k,d]\rightarrow [[2n-1,2n-1-k,d^\perp]]_f\). This procedure may be further generalized by concatenating two different self-orthogonal classical codes with an odd number of bits, as is often done in the CSS construction.
  • Cyclic linear binary code— Cyclic binary linear codes can be used to construct translation-invariant Majorana stabilizer codes, provided that they are also self-orthogonal [2].
  • Stabilizer code— Majorana stabilizer codes are useful for Majorana-based architectures, where the degrees of freedom are electrons, and the notion of locality is different than all other code kingdoms.
  • Modular-qudit stabilizer code— Majorana stabilizer codes can be extended to modular qudits, yielding parafermion stabilizer codes [12].
  • Jordan-Wigner transformation code— A Majorana stabilizer code is a stabilizer code whose stabilizers are composed of Majorana fermion operators, which are in turn realizable using Pauli strings via the Jordan-Wigner mapping.
  • Honeycomb Floquet code— The Honeycomb code admits a convenient representation in terms of Majorana fermions. This leads to a possible physical realization of the code in terms of tetrons [13], where each physical qubit is composed of four Majorana modes.
  • Dynamical code— Dynamical codes are viable candidates for storage in Majorana-qubit devices [14].
  • Majorana subsystem stabilizer code— Subsystem qubit stabilizer codes have been formulated in terms of Majorana operators [15].
  • \([[5,1,3]]\) Five-qubit perfect code— The five-qubit code Hamiltonian is local when expressed in terms of mutually commuting Majorana operators [16].
  • Transverse-field Ising model (TFIM) code— The TFIM code stabilizers can be expressed in terms of Majorana operators.
  • Quantum parity code (QPC)— QPCs for \(m_1=m_2\) can be conveniantly expressed in terms of mutually commuting Majorana operators [17].
  • Pastawski-Yoshida-Harlow-Preskill (HaPPY) code— The pentagon HaPPY code Hamiltonian can be expressed in terms of mutually commuting weight-two (two-body) Majorana operators [18].

Primary Hierarchy

Parents
A Majorana stabilizer code is a stabilizer code whose stabilizers are composed of Majorana fermion operators, which are in turn realizable using Pauli strings via the Jordan-Wigner mapping. Any \([[n,k,d]]\) stabilizer code can be mapped into a \([[2n,k,2d]]_{f}\) Majorana stabilizer code by concatenating with the tetron code [19][1; Lemma 1]. Embedding each physical qubit into two fermions via the tetron code is useful for exactly solving the Kitaev honeycomb model Hamiltonian [19] and other qubit Hamiltonians on certain graphs [20,21]. Majorana stabilizer groups can be converted into ordinary qubit stabilizer groups via the parton mapping, while their corresponding states are converted via the Gutzwiller projection [22].
Majorana stabilizer code
Children

References

[1]
S. Bravyi, B. M. Terhal, and B. Leemhuis, “Majorana fermion codes”, New Journal of Physics 12, 083039 (2010) arXiv:1004.3791 DOI
[2]
S. Vijay and L. Fu, “Quantum Error Correction for Complex and Majorana Fermion Qubits”, (2017) arXiv:1703.00459
[3]
A. Schuckert, E. Crane, A. V. Gorshkov, M. Hafezi, and M. J. Gullans, “Fault-tolerant fermionic quantum computing”, (2025) arXiv:2411.08955
[4]
M. Mudassar, A. Schuckert, and D. Gottesman, “Fault tolerant Operations in Majorana-based Quantum Codes: Gates, Measurements and High Rate Constructions”, (2025) arXiv:2508.09928
[5]
A. Y. Kitaev, “Unpaired Majorana fermions in quantum wires”, Physics-Uspekhi 44, 131 (2001) arXiv:cond-mat/0010440 DOI
[6]
M. B. Hastings, “Small Majorana Fermion Codes”, (2017) arXiv:1703.00612
[7]
R. Okada, “A Quantum Analog of Delsarte’s Linear Programming Bounds”, (2025) arXiv:2502.14165
[8]
M. Mudassar, R. W. Chien, and D. Gottesman, “Encoding Majorana codes”, Physical Review A 110, (2024) arXiv:2402.07829 DOI
[9]
E. Génetay Johansen and T. Simula, “Fibonacci Anyons Versus Majorana Fermions: A Monte Carlo Approach to the Compilation of Braid Circuits in SU(2)k Anyon Models”, PRX Quantum 2, (2021) arXiv:2008.10790 DOI
[10]
G. Zeng, Y. Li, Y. Guo, and M. H. Lee, “Stabilizer quantum codes over the Clifford algebra”, Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 41, 145304 (2008) DOI
[11]
S. Dutta, “A Note on Clifford Stabilizer Codes for Ising Anyons”, (2025) arXiv:2503.08736
[12]
U. Güngördü, R. Nepal, and A. A. Kovalev, “Parafermion stabilizer codes”, Physical Review A 90, (2014) arXiv:1409.4724 DOI
[13]
T. Karzig et al., “Scalable designs for quasiparticle-poisoning-protected topological quantum computation with Majorana zero modes”, Physical Review B 95, (2017) arXiv:1610.05289 DOI
[14]
A. Paetznick, C. Knapp, N. Delfosse, B. Bauer, J. Haah, M. B. Hastings, and M. P. da Silva, “Performance of Planar Floquet Codes with Majorana-Based Qubits”, PRX Quantum 4, (2023) arXiv:2202.11829 DOI
[15]
A. Chapman, S. T. Flammia, and A. J. Kollár, “Free-Fermion Subsystem Codes”, (2022) arXiv:2201.07254
[16]
Aleksander Kubica, private communication, 2019
[17]
S. B. Bravyi and A. Yu. Kitaev, “Fermionic Quantum Computation”, Annals of Physics 298, 210 (2002) arXiv:quant-ph/0003137 DOI
[18]
A. Jahn, M. Gluza, F. Pastawski, and J. Eisert, “Majorana dimers and holographic quantum error-correcting codes”, Physical Review Research 1, (2019) arXiv:1905.03268 DOI
[19]
A. Kitaev, “Anyons in an exactly solved model and beyond”, Annals of Physics 321, 2 (2006) arXiv:cond-mat/0506438 DOI
[20]
A. Chapman and S. T. Flammia, “Characterization of solvable spin models via graph invariants”, Quantum 4, 278 (2020) arXiv:2003.05465 DOI
[21]
S. J. Elman, A. Chapman, and S. T. Flammia, “Free Fermions Behind the Disguise”, Communications in Mathematical Physics 388, 969 (2021) arXiv:2012.07857 DOI
[22]
R. A. Macêdo, C. C. Bellinati, W. B. Fontana, E. C. Andrade, and R. G. Pereira, “Partons from stabilizer codes”, Physical Review B 112, (2025) arXiv:2505.02683 DOI
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Zoo Code ID: majorana_stab

Cite as:
“Majorana stabilizer code”, The Error Correction Zoo (V. V. Albert & P. Faist, eds.), 2025. https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/majorana_stab
BibTeX:
@incollection{eczoo_majorana_stab, title={Majorana stabilizer code}, booktitle={The Error Correction Zoo}, year={2025}, editor={Albert, Victor V. and Faist, Philippe}, url={https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/majorana_stab} }
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“Majorana stabilizer code”, The Error Correction Zoo (V. V. Albert & P. Faist, eds.), 2025. https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/majorana_stab

Github: https://github.com/errorcorrectionzoo/eczoo_data/edit/main/codes/quantum/qubits/majorana/majorana_stab.yml.