arXiv subjects

Shobhit Bhatnagar

Publications and source records attributed to Shobhit Bhatnagar.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Impulse Decoding of Quantum LDPC Codes: Equivalence of Degeneracy and Code-Shortening

Quantum error correction is essential for building scalable quantum computers. Within the stabilizer formalism, the Calderbank-Shor-Steane framework constructs quantum codes from pairs of classical linear codes. A distinctive feature in this setting is degeneracy, where multiple equivalent error estimates exist-a phenomenon that has no classical counterpart, and the lack of a meaningful classical coding-theoretic interpretation of which has remained a gap in the literature. In this paper, we demonstrate that degeneracy is closely related to the classical operation of shortening of a linear block code. Interestingly, the shortening here takes place at the decoder rather than at the encoder. Leveraging this insight, we present a parallel decoding scheme for quantum low-density parity-check codes, which we term impulse decoding, that significantly outperforms belief propagation with ordered statistics decoding, as well as several other existing techniques, under both code-capacity and circuit-level noise, with significantly lesser complexity. We then present another algorithm based on decoding of residual errors, which when combined with impulse decoding achieves further performance improvement under circuit-level noise.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

On the Efficacy of the Peeling Decoder for the Quantum Expander Code

The problem of recovering from qubit erasures has recently gained attention as erasures occur in many physical systems such as photonic systems, trapped ions, superconducting qubits and circuit quantum electrodynamics. While several linear-time decoders for error correction are known, their error-correcting capability is limited to half the minimum distance of the code, whereas erasure correction allows one to go beyond this limit. As in the classical case, stopping sets pose a major challenge in designing efficient erasure decoders for quantum LDPC codes. In this paper, we show through simulation, that an attractive alternative here, is the use of quantum expander codes in conjunction with the peeling decoder that has linear complexity. We also discuss additional techniques including small-set-flip decoding, that can be applied following the peeling operation, to improve decoding performance and their associated complexity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

On Streaming Codes for Burst and Random Errors

Streaming codes (SCs) are packet-level codes that recover erased packets within a strict decoding-delay deadline. Streaming codes for various packet erasure channel models such as sliding-window (SW) channel models that admit random or burst erasures in any SW of a fixed length have been studied in the literature, and the optimal rate as well as rate-optimal code constructions of SCs over such channel models are known. In this paper, we study error-correcting streaming codes ($\text{SC}_{\text{ERR}}$s), i.e., packet-level codes which recover erroneous packets within a delay constraint. We study $\text{SC}_{\text{ERR}}$s for two classes of SW channel models, one that admits random packet errors, and another that admits multiple bursts of packet errors, in any SW of a fixed length. For the case of random packet errors, we establish the equivalence of an $\text{SC}_{\text{ERR}}$ and a corresponding SC that recovers from random packet erasures, thus determining the optimal rate of an $\text{SC}_{\text{ERR}}$ for this setting, and providing a rate-optimal code construction for all parameters. We then focus on SCs that recover from multiple erasure bursts and derive a rate-upper-bound for such SCs. We show the necessity of a divisibility constraint for the existence of an SC constructed by the popular diagonal embedding technique, that achieves this rate-bound under a stringent delay requirement. We then show that a construction known in the literature achieves this rate-bound when the divisibility constraint is met. We further show the equivalence of the SCs considered and $\text{SC}_{\text{ERR}}$s for the setting of multiple error bursts, under a stringent delay requirement.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2024

On Streaming Codes for Simultaneously Correcting Burst and Random Erasures

Streaming codes are packet-level codes that recover dropped packets within a strict decoding-delay constraint. We study streaming codes over a sliding-window (SW) channel model which admits only those erasure patterns which allow either a single burst erasure of $\le b$ packets along with $\le e$ random packet erasures, or else, $\le a$ random packet erasures, in any sliding-window of $w$ time slots. We determine the optimal rate of a streaming code constructed via the popular diagonal embedding (DE) technique over such a SW channel under delay constraint $\tau=(w-1)$ and provide an $O(w)$ field size code construction. For the case $e>1$, we show that it is not possible to significantly reduce this field size requirement, assuming the well-known MDS conjecture. We then provide a block code construction whose DE yields a streaming code achieving the rate derived above, over a field of size sub-linear in $w,$ for a family of parameters having $e=1.$ We show the field size optimality of this construction for some parameters, and near-optimality for others under a sparsity constraint. Additionally, we derive an upper-bound on the $d_{\text{min}}$ of a cyclic code and characterize cyclic codes which achieve this bound via their ability to simultaneously recover from burst and random erasures.

cs.IT↗