Characterization of Unlearnable Noise with Mid-Circuit-Measurement-Based Cycle Benchmarking

Abstract

Noise characterization of multi-qubit entangling Clifford operations is a key practical bottleneck for quantum error mitigation and for the calibration, validation, and optimization of quantum error-correction protocols, especially in the presence of state preparation and measurement (SPAM) errors. Although cycle benchmarking can isolate some Pauli error components, it cannot resolve the problem of coupled error parameters, which leads to unlearnable degrees of freedom even in simple noisy gates, not to mention general $n$-qubit Clifford gates. Here we introduce mid-circuit-measurement-based generalized cycle benchmarking, a framework that makes otherwise unidentifiable Pauli fidelities and non-Markovian noise learnable via repeated measurements and classical post-processing. Applying the deferred feed-forward principle to generalized cycle benchmarking, we show that an insertion of mid-circuit measurements can reverse Pauli cycles induced by a general Clifford gate. This fact enables us to reveal a Pauli-noise learnability condition for Clifford gates. Assuming sufficient state preparation quality, we numerically demonstrate the feasibility of characterizing the previously unlearnable noise components. We implement the protocol on superconducting quantum processing units and validate its effectiveness in disambiguating the coupled noise components, benchmarked against conventional tomography. Finally, we observe consistent measurement-induced bit-flip bias and non-Markovian correlations, which define a range of applicability for the Pauli noise model and the proposed noise-characterization protocol.