Demonstration of dynamic surface codes
Alec Eickbusch, Matt McEwen, Volodymyr Sivak, Alexandre Bourassa, Juan Atalaya, Jahan Claes, Dvir Kafri, Craig Gidney, Christopher Warren, Jonathan A. Gross, Alex Opremcak, Nicholas Zobrist, Kevin C. Miao, Gabrielle Roberts, Kevin J. Satzinger, Andreas Bengtsson, M. Neeley, William P. Livingston, Alex Greene, Rajeev Acharya, Laleh Aghababaie Beni, Georg Aigeldinger, Ross Alcaraz, Trond I. Andersen, M. Ansmann, Frank Arute, Kunal Arya, Abraham Asfaw, Ryan Babbush, Brian Ballard, Joseph C. Bardin, Alexander Bilmes, Jenna Bovaird, Dylan Bowers, Leon Brill, Michael Broughton, David A. Browne, Brett Buchea, Bob B. Buckley, Tim Burger, Brian Burkett, Nicholas Bushnell, Anthony Cabrera, Juan Campero, Hung-Shen Chang, B. Chiaro, Liang-Ying Chih, Agnetta Y. Cleland, Josh Cogan, Roberto Collins, Paul Conner, William Courtney, Alexander L. Crook, Ben Curtin, Sayan Das, Alexander Del Toro Barba, Sean Demura, Laura de Lorenzo, Agustín Di Paolo, Paul Donohoe, Ilya Drozdov, A. Dunsworth, Aviv Moshe Elbag, Mahmoud Elzouka, Catherine Erickson, Vinicius S. Ferreira, Leslie Flores Burgos, Ebrahim Forati, Austin G. Fowler, Brooks Foxen, Suhas Ganjam, Gonzalo Cerruela García, Robert Gasca, Élie Genois, William Giang, Dar Gilboa, Raja Gosula, Alejandro Grajales Dau, Dietrich Graumann, Tan Ha, Steve Habegger, Michael C. Hamilton, Monica Hansen, Matthew P. Harrigan, Sean D. Harrington, Stephen Heslin, Paula Heu, Oscar Higgott, Reno Hiltermann, Jeremy Hilton, Hsin-Yuan Huang, Ashley Huff, William J. Huggins, Evan Jeffrey, Jiang Zhang, Xiaoxuan Jin, Cody Jones, Chaitali Joshi, Pavol Juhás, A. Kabel
Abstract
A remarkable characteristic of quantum computing is the potential for reliable computation despite faulty qubits. This can be achieved through quantum error correction, which is typically implemented by repeatedly applying static syndrome checks, permitting correction of logical information. Recently, the development of time-dynamic approaches to error correction has enabled different codes and implementations that do not rely on static syndrome measurements. Here we experimentally demonstrate three time-dynamic implementations of the surface code, each offering a distinct solution to hardware design challenges faced by surface code realizations. First, we embed the surface code on a hexagonal lattice, reducing the necessary couplings per qubit from four to three. Second, we walk a surface code, swapping the role of data and measure qubits each round, achieving error correction with built-in removal of accumulated non-computational errors. Finally, we realize the surface code using iSWAP gates instead of the traditional CNOT, extending the set of viable gates for error correction without additional overhead. We measure the error suppression factor when scaling from distance-3 to distance-5 codes of Λ35,hex = 2.15(2), Λ35,walk = 1.69(6) and Λ35,iSWAP = 1.56(2), achieving state-of-the-art error suppression for each. Our work demonstrates that dynamic circuit approaches meet the demands for fault tolerance and enable alternative strategies for scalable hardware design. Typical quantum error correcting codes assign fixed roles to the underlying physical qubits. Now the performance benefits of alternative, dynamic error correction schemes have been demonstrated on a superconducting quantum processor.