Classical simulation of coherent crosstalk in surface codes

Abstract

We give a polynomial-time classical algorithm which samples from the syndrome distribution of a surface code state corrupted by coherent nearest-neighbor $ZZ$ crosstalk. Our algorithm complements the known efficient simulation algorithms for coherent single-qubit errors in the surface code. When both single-qubit coherent noise and coherent crosstalk are present, we find a complexity-theoretic obstruction to efficient simulation: unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses, there is no efficient classical algorithm for sampling from the syndrome distribution, even up to a constant multiplicative error. This is obtained by connecting the syndrome distribution under coherent noise to the output distribution of certain IQP circuits associated with a non-planar graph.