GunSik Min | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Defect-Adaptive Lattice Surgery on Irregular Boundary Surface-Code Patches

Defect-adaptive surface-code methods have substantially advanced the construction of valid logical patches on imperfect hardware, but fault-tolerant computation also requires executable logical oper ations on the resulting irregular geometries. We formulate the seam-boundary defect problem: how to perform a lattice-surgery merge when the intended seam intersects deformed boundaries, disabled checks, and gauge-inferred super-stabilizers. We introduce a defect-adaptive lattice-surgery method that reconstructs the target joint logical parity from the seam-related measurements available on the irregular merged patch, together with constraints inherited from the separated pre-merge code space. The reconstruction is expressed as a compact GF(2) binary-support synthesis problem. If the requested parity is realizable, the solution gives an executable parity-extraction rule over raw, schedule-tagged gauge outcomes; otherwise, it certifies a parity-synthesis failure rather than conflat ing it with patch invalidity. The framework accommodates boundary data-qubit defects, seam-check ancilla defects, and gauge-inferred seam super-checks within a single synthesis layer. Circuit-level samples of the synthesized merge operation show improved compile yield, preserved effective dis tance, and only modest success-conditioned logical-error overhead relative to the defect-free merge reference; an explicit ZZ-merge sampling check confirms the expected transposed-geometry behav ior under the same success-conditioned observable construction. More broadly, the results identify certified parity synthesis as a compilation layer between defect-adaptive patch construction and executable fault-tolerant logical operations on imperfect surface-code hardware.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

3D Stacked Surface-Code Architecture for Measurement-Free Fault-Tolerant Quantum Error Correction

Mid-circuit measurements are a major bottleneck for superconducting quantum processors because they are slower and noisier than gates. Measurement-free quantum error correction (mfec) replaces repeated measurements and classical feed-forward by coherent quantum feedback, but existing mfec protocols suffer from severe connectivity overhead when mapped to planar surface-code architectures: transversal interactions between logical patches require SWAP chains of length $O(d)$ in the code distance, which increase depth and generate hook errors. This work introduces a 3D stacked surface-code architecture for measurement-free fault-tolerant quantum error correction that removes this connectivity bottleneck. Vertical transversal couplers between aligned surface-code patches enable coherent parity mapping and feedback with zero SWAP overhead, realizing constant-depth $O(1)$ inter-layer operations in d while preserving local 2D stabilizer checks. A fault-tolerant mfec protocol for the surface code is constructed that suppresses hook errors under realistic noise. An analytical performance model shows that the 3D architecture overcomes the readout error floor and achieves logical error rates orders of magnitude below both standard measurement-based surface codes and 2D mfec variants in regimes with slow, noisy measurements, identifying 3D integration as a key enabler for scalable measurement-free fault tolerance.

quant-ph↗