Finite-dimensional quantum error-correcting code 

Description

Encodes quantum information in a \(K\)-dimensional (logical) subspace of an \(N\)-dimensional (physical) Hilbert space such that it is possible to recover said information from errors. The logical subspace is spanned by a basis comprised of code basis states or codewords.

Protection

Denoting Hilbert spaces by the letter \(\mathsf{H}\), a finite-dimensional quantum code \((U,\cal{E})\) is a partial isometry \(U:\mathsf{H}_{K}\to\mathsf{H}_{N}\) and a set of correctable errors \({\cal{E}}:\mathsf{H}_N\to\mathsf{H}_M\) with the following property: there exists a quantum operation \({\cal{D}}:\mathsf{H}_M\to \mathsf{H}_K\) such that for all \(E\in\cal{E}\) and states \(|\psi\rangle\in\mathsf{H}_{K}\), \begin{align} {\cal D}(EU|\psi\rangle\langle\psi|U^{\dagger}E^{\dagger})=c(E,|\psi\rangle)|\psi\rangle\langle\psi|\tag*{(1)}\end{align} for some constant \(c\) [1]. A code is said to protect against or correct the errors \(\mathcal{E}\).

Knill-Laflamme error correction conditions

Equivalently, correction capability is determined by of the quantum error-correction conditions, which may admit infinite terms due to non-normalizability of ideal code states. A code that satisfies these conditions approximately, i.e., up to some small quantifiable error, is called an approximate code.

Knill-Laflamme conditions: In a finite-dimensional Hilbert space, there are necessary and sufficient conditions for a code to successfully correct a set of errors. These are called the Knill-Laflamme error-correction conditions [24][5; Thm. 10.1]. A code defined by a partial isometry \(U\) with code space projector \(\Pi = U U^\dagger\) can correct a set of errors \(\{ E_j \}\) if and only if \begin{align} \Pi E_i^\dagger E_j \Pi = c_{ij}\, \Pi\qquad\text{for all \(i,j\),} \tag*{(2)}\end{align} where \(c_{ij}\) can be arbitrary numbers.

A code is degenerate with respect to a noise model if different errors map code states to the same error subspace. For a linearly independent error set \(\cal{E}\), degeneracy is equivalent to \(\text{rank}(c_{ij}) < |\cal{E}|\).

Determining protection and bounds on code parameters can also be done using Shor-Laflamme quantum weight enumerators [6] and Rains shadow enumerators [7] (see also [8]).

Correctability of quantum channels

From now on, we use \(\mathcal{E}\) to denote a noise channel constructed out of the set of errors \(E\) and let \(\mathcal{U}(\cdot)=U(\cdot)U^\dagger\) be the superoperator corresponding to the partial encdoing isometry \(U\). A noise channel is correctable if there exists a recovery channel \(\mathcal{D}\) such that \begin{align} \mathcal{D}\mathcal{E}\mathcal{U}(\rho)=\rho \tag*{(3)}\end{align} for all logical states \(\rho\).

The above is equivalent to the fidelity between \(\rho\) and \(\mathcal{D}\mathcal{E}\mathcal{U}(\rho)\) being one for any notion of distance between quantum states. In particular, we can consider a scenario where we send only one part of an entangled state through a channel and determine whether the entanglement has been preserved during transmission. Using the notion of entanglement fidelity, a quantum channel \(\mathcal{E}\) is exactly correctable iff there exists a quantum channel \(\mathcal{D}\) such that \begin{align} (\mathcal{D}\mathcal{E}\mathcal{U}\otimes\mathrm{id})(\ket{\psi}\bra{\psi})=\ket{\psi}\bra{\psi} \tag*{(4)}\end{align} for all states \(\rho\) and their corresponding purifications \(\ket{\psi}\) (i.e., states \(\ket{\psi}\) such that \(\text{Tr}_{2}(|\psi\rangle\langle\psi|)=\rho\)).

The above entanglement fidelity condition can be alternatively expressed using complementary channels. A complementary channel \(\mathcal{E}^C\) is obtained from a channel \(\mathcal{E}\) that acts on a system by interpreting the channel as coming from a unitary operation acting on a larger system-environment tensor-product space (i.e., performing an isometric extension) and then tracing out the system factor (instead of the second environmental factor) [9; Sec. 5.2.2]. A noise channel \({\cal E}(\cdot)=\sum_{j}E_{j}(\cdot)E_{j}^{\dagger}\) admits a complementary channel of the form \begin{align} {\cal E}^{C}(\cdot)=\sum_{j,k}\text{Tr}\{E_{j}(\cdot)E_{k}^{\dagger}\}|j\rangle\langle k|~. \tag*{(5)}\end{align} The channel is correctable if \(\mathcal{E}^C(\rho)=\rho_0\mathrm{Tr}(\rho)\) for some constant state \(\rho_0\), which is equivalent to the Knill-Laflamme conditions [10].

Rate

One can achieve a transmission rate \(r\) over a quantum channel \(\mathcal{E}\) iff, for sufficiently large \(n\), \(m=\lfloor r n \rfloor\), and for all \(\epsilon>0\), \begin{align} ||\mathcal{D}\mathcal{E}\mathcal{U}-I^{\otimes m}||_1\leq \epsilon \tag*{(6)}\end{align} for some encoding channel \(\mathcal{U}\) and some recovery channel \(\mathcal{D}\). The quantum capacity \(Q\) of \(\mathcal{E}\) is defined as the supremum over \(n\) of achievable transmission rates [11].

Gates

Universal gate set cannot be transversal for any code that detects single-qubit errors due to Eastin-Knill theorem [12].

Decoding

The operation \(\cal{D}\) in the definition of this code is called the decoder. However, the term decoder can sometimes be used for the inverse of the encoder \(\cal{U}\), which does not correct errors.Quantum machine-learning based decoders such as quantum convolutional neural networks [13] and quantum autoencoders [14].

Parent

Children

Cousin

References

[1]
D. Gottesman. Surviving as a quantum computer in a classical world
[2]
E. Knill and R. Laflamme, “Theory of quantum error-correcting codes”, Physical Review A 55, 900 (1997) DOI
[3]
C. H. Bennett et al., “Mixed-state entanglement and quantum error correction”, Physical Review A 54, 3824 (1996) arXiv:quant-ph/9604024 DOI
[4]
J. Preskill. Lecture notes on Quantum Computation. (1997–2020) URL
[5]
M. A. Nielsen and I. L. Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information (Cambridge University Press, 2012) DOI
[6]
P. Shor and R. Laflamme, “Quantum MacWilliams Identities”, (1996) arXiv:quant-ph/9610040
[7]
E. M. Rains, “Quantum shadow enumerators”, (1997) arXiv:quant-ph/9611001
[8]
A. J. Scott, “Probabilities of Failure for Quantum Error Correction”, Quantum Information Processing 4, 399 (2005) arXiv:quant-ph/0406063 DOI
[9]
M. M. Wilde, Quantum Information Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2013) DOI
[10]
C. Bény and O. Oreshkov, “General Conditions for Approximate Quantum Error Correction and Near-Optimal Recovery Channels”, Physical Review Letters 104, (2010) arXiv:0907.5391 DOI
[11]
J. Watrous, The Theory of Quantum Information (Cambridge University Press, 2018) DOI
[12]
B. Eastin and E. Knill, “Restrictions on Transversal Encoded Quantum Gate Sets”, Physical Review Letters 102, (2009) arXiv:0811.4262 DOI
[13]
I. Cong, S. Choi, and M. D. Lukin, “Quantum convolutional neural networks”, Nature Physics 15, 1273 (2019) arXiv:1810.03787 DOI
[14]
D. F. Locher, L. Cardarelli, and M. Müller, “Quantum Error Correction with Quantum Autoencoders”, Quantum 7, 942 (2023) arXiv:2202.00555 DOI
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Zoo Code ID: qecc_finite

Cite as:
“Finite-dimensional quantum error-correcting code”, The Error Correction Zoo (V. V. Albert & P. Faist, eds.), 2023. https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/qecc_finite
BibTeX:
@incollection{eczoo_qecc_finite,
  title={Finite-dimensional quantum error-correcting code},
  booktitle={The Error Correction Zoo},
  year={2023},
  editor={Albert, Victor V. and Faist, Philippe},
  url={https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/qecc_finite}
}
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“Finite-dimensional quantum error-correcting code”, The Error Correction Zoo (V. V. Albert & P. Faist, eds.), 2023. https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/qecc_finite

Github: https://github.com/errorcorrectionzoo/eczoo_data/tree/main/codes/quantum/properties/qecc_finite.yml.