Leakage detection for a transmon-based surface code

Bibliographic Details
Title: Leakage detection for a transmon-based surface code
Authors: Varbanov, B. M., Battistel, F., Tarasinski, B. M., Ostroukh, V. P., O'Brien, T. E., DiCarlo, L., Terhal, B. M.
Source: npj Quantum Inf 6, 102 (2020)
Publication Year: 2020
Collection: Quantum Physics
Subject Terms: Quantum Physics
More Details: Leakage outside of the qubit computational subspace, present in many leading experimental platforms, constitutes a threatening error for quantum error correction (QEC) for qubits. We develop a leakage-detection scheme via Hidden Markov models (HMMs) for transmon-based implementations of the surface code. By performing realistic density-matrix simulations of the distance-3 surface code (Surface-17), we observe that leakage is sharply projected and leads to an increase in the surface-code defect probability of neighboring stabilizers. Together with the analog readout of the ancilla qubits, this increase enables the accurate detection of the time and location of leakage. We restore the logical error rate below the memory break-even point by post-selecting out leakage, discarding about 47% of the data. Leakage detection via HMMs opens the prospect for near-term QEC demonstrations, targeted leakage reduction and leakage-aware decoding and is applicable to other experimental platforms.
Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures
Document Type: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1038/s41534-020-00330-w
Access URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2002.07119
Accession Number: edsarx.2002.07119
Database: arXiv
More Details
DOI:10.1038/s41534-020-00330-w