Modular-qudit stabilizer code[1]

An \(((n,K,d))_q\) modular-qudit code whose logical subspace is the joint eigenspace of commuting qudit Pauli operators forming the code's stabilizer group \(\mathsf{S}\). Traditionally, the logical subspace is the joint \(+1\) eigenspace, and the stabilizer group does not contain \(e^{i \phi} I\) for any \(\phi \neq 0\). The distance \(d\) is the minimum weight of a qudit Pauli string that implements a nontrivial logical operation in the code.

A modular-qudit stabilizer code encoding an integer number of qudits (\(K=q^k\)) is denoted as \([[n,k]]_{\mathbb{Z}_q}\) or \([[n,k,d]]_{\mathbb{Z}_q}\). For composite \(q\), such codes need not encode an integer number of qudits, with \(K=q^n/|\mathsf{S}|\) [2]. This is because \(|{\mathsf{S}}|\) need not be a power of \(q\), as group generators may have different orders. As a result, \([[n,k,d]]\) notation is often used with non-integer \(k=\log_q K\). Prime-qudit stabilizer codes, where \(q=p\) for some prime \(p\), do not suffer from this issue and encode \(n-k\) logical qudits, with \(K=p^{n-k}\).

Each code can be represented by a check matrix (a.k.a. stabilizer generator matrix) \(H=(A|B)\), where each row \((a|b)\) is the \(q\)-ary symplectic representation of a stabilizer generator. The check matrix can be brought into standard form via Gaussian elimination [2].