In-person: Room 18/19

Title: Autonomous Repetition Code in 2D with a Trapped-Ion Quantum Computer

Abstract: Quantum error correction is usually considered in monitored systems, where errors are detected, decoded with classical logic, and then corrections are applied. In classical statistical mechanics there are known local cellular automata, e.g. Toom’s rule, that through simple local updates— and without the intervention of complicated logic—can stabilize classical information, i.e. there exist good autonomous classical error correcting codes. Extensions of such codes to quantum error correction have been considered but never realized in practice, and have the potential to greatly simplify the process of decoding errors to decide what corrections to apply. We study a local two-dimensional dissipative circuit first proposed in Ref. [1], which generalizes Toom’s rule into a quantum setting in order to stabilize a quantum state against bit-flip errors. While the quantization of Toom’s model falls short of a full quantum error-correcting code, it provides a proof of principle example of stabilizing quantum properties in a two-dimensional unmonitored circuit.

[1] F. Pastawski, L. Clemente, and J. I. Cirac, Phys. Rev. A 83, 012304 (2011).