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Ben Barber

Publications and source records attributed to Ben Barber.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2024

Ambiguity Clustering: an accurate and efficient decoder for qLDPC codes

Error correction allows a quantum computer to preserve states long beyond the decoherence time of its physical qubits. Key to any scheme of error correction is the decoding algorithm, which estimates the error state of qubits from the results of syndrome measurements. The leading proposal for quantum error correction, the surface code, has fast and accurate decoders, but several recently proposed quantum low-density parity check (qLDPC) codes allow more logical information to be encoded in significantly fewer physical qubits. The state-of-the-art decoder for general qLDPC codes, BP-OSD, has a cheap Belief Propagation stage, followed by linear algebra and search stages which can each be slow in practice. We introduce the Ambiguity Clustering decoder (AC) which, after the Belief Propagation stage, divides the measurement data into clusters that can be decoded independently. We benchmark AC on the recently proposed bivariate bicycle qLDPC codes and find that, with 0.3% circuit-level depolarising noise, AC is up to 27x faster than BP-OSD with matched accuracy. Our implementation of AC decodes the 144-qubit Gross code in 135us per round of syndrome extraction on an M2 CPU, already fast enough to keep up with neutral atom and trapped ion systems.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2023

A real-time, scalable, fast and highly resource efficient decoder for a quantum computer

To unleash the potential of quantum computers, noise effects on qubits' performance must be carefully managed. The decoders responsible for diagnosing noise-induced computational errors must use resources efficiently to enable scaling to large qubit counts and cryogenic operation. Additionally, they must operate at speed, to avoid an exponential slowdown in the logical clock rate of the quantum computer. To overcome such challenges, we introduce the Collision Clustering decoder and implement it on FPGA and ASIC hardware. We simulate logical memory experiments using the leading quantum error correction scheme, the surface code, and demonstrate MHz decoding speed - matching the requirements of fast-operating modalities such as superconducting qubits - up to an 881 and 1057 qubits surface code with the FPGA and ASIC, respectively. The ASIC design occupies 0.06 mm$^2$ and consumes only 8 mW of power. Our decoder is both highly performant and resource efficient, unlocking a viable path to practically realising fault-tolerant quantum computers.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2022

Post-selection-free preparation of high-quality physical qubits

Rapidly improving gate fidelities for coherent operations mean that errors in state preparation and measurement (SPAM) may become a dominant source of error for fault-tolerant operation of quantum computers. This is particularly acute in superconducting systems, where tradeoffs in measurement fidelity and qubit lifetimes have limited overall performance. Fortunately, the essentially classical nature of preparation and measurement enables a wide variety of techniques for improving quality using auxiliary qubits combined with classical control and post-selection. In practice, however, post-selection greatly complicates the scheduling of processes such as syndrome extraction. Here we present a family of quantum circuits that prepare high-quality |0> states without post-selection, instead using CNOT and Toffoli gates to non-linearly permute the computational basis. We find meaningful performance enhancements when two-qubit gate fidelities errors go below 0.2%, and even better performance when native Toffoli gates are available.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2021

Small sums of five roots of unity

Motivated by questions in number theory, Myerson asked how small the sum of 5 complex nth roots of unity can be. We obtain a uniform bound of O(n^{-4/3}) by perturbing the vertices of a regular pentagon, improving to O(n^{-7/3}) infinitely often. The corresponding configurations were suggested by examining exact minimum values computed for n <= 221000. These minima can be explained at least in part by selection of the best example from multiple families of competing configurations related to close rational approximations.

math.NT↗
arXiv2020

Isoperimetric stability in lattices

We obtain isoperimetric stability theorems for general Cayley digraphs on $\mathbb{Z}^d$. For any fixed $B$ that generates $\mathbb{Z}^d$ over $\mathbb{Z}$, we characterise the approximate structure of large sets $A$ that are approximately isoperimetric in the Cayley digraph of $B$: we show that $A$ must be close to a set of the form $kZ \cap \mathbb{Z}^d$, where for the vertex boundary $Z$ is the conical hull of $B$, and for the edge boundary $Z$ is the zonotope generated by $B$.

math.CO↗
arXiv2018

The Namer-Claimer game

In each round of the Namer-Claimer game, Namer names a distance d, then Claimer claims a subset of [n] that does not contain two points that differ by d. Claimer wins once they have claimed sets covering [n]. I show that the length of this game is of order log log n with optimal play from each side.

math.CO↗
arXiv2018

Minimalist designs

The iterative absorption method has recently led to major progress in the area of (hyper-)graph decompositions. Amongst other results, a new proof of the Existence conjecture for combinatorial designs, and some generalizations, was obtained. Here, we illustrate the method by investigating triangle decompositions: we give a simple proof that a triangle-divisible graph of large minimum degree has a triangle decomposition and prove a similar result for quasi-random host graphs.

math.CO↗
arXiv2017

Isoperimetry in integer lattices

The edge isoperimetric problem for a graph $G$ is to determine, for each $n$, the minimum number of edges leaving any set of $n$ vertices. In general this problem is NP-hard, but exact solutions are known in some special cases, for example when $G$ is the usual integer lattice. We solve the edge isoperimetric problem asymptotically for every Cayley graph on $\mathbb Z^d$. The near-optimal shapes that we exhibit are zonotopes generated by line segments corresponding to the generators of the Cayley graph.

math.CO↗
arXiv2016

Clique decompositions of multipartite graphs and completion of Latin squares

Our main result essentially reduces the problem of finding an edge-decomposition of a balanced r-partite graph of large minimum degree into r-cliques to the problem of finding a fractional r-clique decomposition or an approximate one. Together with very recent results of Bowditch and Dukes as well as Montgomery on fractional decompositions into triangles and cliques respectively, this gives the best known bounds on the minimum degree which ensures an edge-decomposition of an r-partite graph into r-cliques (subject to trivially necessary divisibility conditions). The case of triangles translates into the setting of partially completed Latin squares and more generally the case of r-cliques translates into the setting of partially completed mutually orthogonal Latin squares.

math.CO↗
arXiv2015

Fractional Clique Decompositions of Dense Graphs and Hypergraphs

Our main result is that every graph $G$ on $n\ge 10^4r^3$ vertices with minimum degree $\delta(G) \ge (1 - 1 / 10^4 r^{3/2} ) n$ has a fractional $K_r$-decomposition. Combining this result with recent work of Barber, K\"uhn, Lo and Osthus leads to the best known minimum degree thresholds for exact (non-fractional) $F$-decompositions for a wide class of graphs~$F$ (including large cliques). For general $k$-uniform hypergraphs, we give a short argument which shows that there exists a constant $c_k>0$ such that every $k$-uniform hypergraph $G$ on $n$ vertices with minimum codegree at least $(1- c_k /r^{2k-1}) n $ has a fractional $K^{(k)}_r$-decomposition, where $K^{(k)}_r$ is the complete $k$-uniform hypergraph on $r$ vertices. (Related fractional decomposition results for triangles have been obtained by Dross and for hypergraph cliques by Dukes as well as Yuster.) All the above new results involve purely combinatorial arguments. In particular, this yields a combinatorial proof of Wilson's theorem that every large $F$-divisible complete graph has an $F$-decomposition.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

Edge-decompositions of graphs with high minimum degree

A fundamental theorem of Wilson states that, for every graph $F$, every sufficiently large $F$-divisible clique has an $F$-decomposition. Here a graph $G$ is $F$-divisible if $e(F)$ divides $e(G)$ and the greatest common divisor of the degrees of $F$ divides the greatest common divisor of the degrees of $G$, and $G$ has an $F$-decomposition if the edges of $G$ can be covered by edge-disjoint copies of $F$. We extend this result to graphs $G$ which are allowed to be far from complete. In particular, together with a result of Dross, our results imply that every sufficiently large $K_3$-divisible graph of minimum degree at least $9n/10+o(n)$ has a $K_3$-decomposition. This significantly improves previous results towards the long-standing conjecture of Nash-Williams that every sufficiently large $K_3$-divisible graph with minimum degree at least $3n/4$ has a $K_3$-decomposition. We also obtain the asymptotically correct minimum degree thresholds of $2n/3 +o(n)$ for the existence of a $C_4$-decomposition, and of $n/2+o(n)$ for the existence of a $C_{2\ell}$-decomposition, where $\ell\ge 3$. Our main contribution is a general `iterative absorption' method which turns an approximate or fractional decomposition into an exact one. In particular, our results imply that in order to prove an asymptotic version of Nash-Williams' conjecture, it suffices to show that every $K_3$-divisible graph with minimum degree at least $3n/4+o(n)$ has an approximate $K_3$-decomposition,

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

Distinguishing subgroups of the rationals by their Ramsey properties

A system of linear equations with integer coefficients is partition regular over a subset S of the reals if, whenever S\{0} is finitely coloured, there is a solution to the system contained in one colour class. It has been known for some time that there is an infinite system of linear equations that is partition regular over R but not over Q, and it was recently shown (answering a long-standing open question) that one can also distinguish Q from Z in this way. Our aim is to show that the transition from Z to Q is not sharp: there is an infinite chain of subgroups of Q, each of which has a system that is partition regular over it but not over its predecessors. We actually prove something stronger: our main result is that if R and S are subrings of Q with R not contained in S, then there is a system that is partition regular over R but not over S. This implies, for example, that the chain above may be taken to be uncountable.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

Partition regularity without the columns property

A finite or infinite matrix A with rational entries is called partition regular if whenever the natural numbers are finitely coloured there is a monochromatic vector x with Ax=0. Many of the classical theorems of Ramsey Theory may naturally be interpreted as assertions that particular matrices are partition regular. In the finite case, Rado proved that a matrix is partition regular if and only it satisfies a computable condition known as the columns property. The first requirement of the columns property is that some set of columns sums to zero. In the infinite case, much less is known. There are many examples of matrices with the columns property that are not partition regular, but until now all known examples of partition regular matrices did have the columns property. Our main aim in this paper is to show that, perhaps surprisingly, there are infinite partition regular matrices without the columns property --- in fact, having no set of columns summing to zero. We also make a conjecture that if a partition regular matrix (say with integer coefficients) has bounded row sums then it must have the columns property, and prove a first step towards this.

math.CO↗
arXiv2013

Partition regularity in the rationals

A system of homogeneous linear equations with integer coefficients is partition regular if, whenever the natural numbers are finitely coloured, the system has a monochromatic solution. The Finite Sums theorem provided the first example of an infinite partition regular system of equations. Since then, other such systems of equations have been found, but each can be viewed as a modification of the Finite Sums theorem. We present here a new infinite partition regular system of equations that appears to arise in a genuinely different way. This is the first example of a partition regular system in which a variable occurs with unbounded coefficients. A modification of the system provides an example of a system that is partition regular over Q but not N, settling another open problem.

math.CO↗
arXiv2013

Partition regularity with congruence conditions

An infinite integer matrix A is called image partition regular if, whenever the natural numbers are finitely coloured, there is an integer vector x such that Ax is monochromatic. Given an image partition regular matrix A, can we also insist that each variable x_i is a multiple of some given d_i? This is a question of Hindman, Leader and Strauss. Our aim in this short note is to show that the answer is negative. As an application, we disprove a conjectured equivalence between the two main forms of partition regularity, namely image partition regularity and kernel partition regularity.

math.CO↗
arXiv2013

Random walks on quasirandom graphs

Let G be a quasirandom graph on n vertices, and let W be a random walk on G of length alpha n^2. Must the set of edges traversed by W form a quasirandom graph? This question was asked by Böttcher, Hladký, Piguet and Taraz. Our aim in this paper is to give a positive answer to this question. We also prove a similar result for random embeddings of trees.

math.CO↗
arXiv2012

A note on balanced independent sets in the cube

Ramras conjectured that the maximum size of an independent set in the discrete cube containing equal numbers of sets of even and odd size is 2^(n-1) - (n-1 choose (n-1)/2) when n is odd. We prove this conjecture, and find the analogous bound when n is even. The result follows from an isoperimetric inequality in the cube.

math.CO↗