arXiv subjects

Todd A. Brun

Publications and source records attributed to Todd A. Brun.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Continuous quantum error detection and suppression with pairwise local interactions

Performing measurements for high-weight operators has been a practical problem in quantum computation, especially for quantum codes in the stabilizer formalism. The conventional procedure of measuring a high-weight operator requires multiple pairwise unitary operations, which can be slow and prone to errors. We provide an alternative method to passively detect the value of a high-weight operator using only two-local interactions and single-qubit continuous measurements. This approach involves joint interactions between the system and continuously-monitored ancillary qubits. The measurement outcomes from the monitor qubits reveal information about the value of the operator. This information can be retrieved by using a numerical estimator or by evaluating the time average of the signals. The interaction Hamiltonian can be effectively built using only two-local operators, based on techniques from perturbation theory. We apply this indirect detection scheme to the four-qubit Bacon-Shor code, where the two stabilizers are indirectly monitored using four ancillary qubits. Due to the fact that the four-qubit Bacon-Shor code is an error-detecting code and that the Quantum Zeno Effect can suppress errors, we also study the error suppression under the indirect measurement process. In this example, we show that various types of non-Markovian errors can be suppressed.

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arXiv2020

Quantum cellular automata and quantum field theory in two spatial dimensions

Quantum walks on lattices can give rise to one-particle relativistic wave equations in the long-wavelength limit. In going to multiple particles, quantum cellular automata (QCA) are natural generalizations of quantum walks. In one spatial dimension, the quantum walk can be "promoted" to a QCA that, in the long-wavelength limit, gives rise to the Dirac quantum field theory (QFT) for noninteracting fermions. This QCA/QFT correspondence has both theoretical and practical applications, but there are obstacles to similar constructions in two or more spatial dimensions. Here we show that a method of construction employing distinguishable particles confined to the completely antisymmetric subspace yields a QCA in two spatial dimensions that gives rise to the 2D Dirac QFT. Generalizing to 3D will entail some additional complications, but no conceptual barriers. We examine how this construction evades the "no go" results in earlier work.

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arXiv2020

Quantum field theory from a quantum cellular automaton in one spatial dimension and a no-go theorem in higher dimensions

It has been shown that certain quantum walks give rise to relativistic wave equations, such as the Dirac and Weyl equations, in their long-wavelength limits. This intriguing result raises the question of whether something similar can happen in the multi-particle case. We construct a one-dimensional quantum cellular automaton (QCA) model which matches the quantum walk in the single particle case, and which approaches the quantum field theory of free fermions in the long-wavelength limit. However, we show that this class of constructions does not generalize to higher spatial dimensions in any straightforward way, and that no construction with similar properties is possible in two or more spatial dimensions. This rules out the most common approaches based on QCAs. We suggest possible methods to overcome this barrier while retaining locality.

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arXiv2020

Constant depth fault-tolerant Clifford circuits for multi-qubit large block codes

Fault-tolerant quantum computation (FTQC) schemes using large block codes that encode $k>1$ qubits in $n$ physical qubits can potentially reduce the resource overhead to a great extent because of their high encoding rate. However, the fault-tolerant (FT) logical operations for the encoded qubits are difficult to find and implement, which usually takes not only a very large resource overhead but also long $\textit{in-situ}$ computation time. In this paper, we focus on Calderbank-Shor-Steane $[\![ n,k,d ]\!]$ (CSS) codes and their logical FT Clifford circuits. We show that the depth of an arbitrary logical Clifford circuit can be implemented fault-tolerantly in $O(1)$ steps \emph{in-situ} via either Knill or Steane syndrome measurement circuit, with the qualified ancilla states efficiently prepared. Particularly, for those codes satisfying $k/n\sim Θ(1)$, the resource scaling for Clifford circuits implementation on the logical level can be the same as on the physical level up to a constant, which is independent of code distance $d$. With a suitable pipeline to produce ancilla states, our scheme requires only a modest resource cost in physical qubits, physical gates, and computation time for very large scale FTQC.

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arXiv2019

Quantum Error Correction

Quantum error correction is a set of methods to protect quantum information--that is, quantum states--from unwanted environmental interactions (decoherence) and other forms of noise. The information is stored in a quantum error-correcting code, which is a subspace in a larger Hilbert space. This code is designed so that the most common errors move the state into an error space orthogonal to the original code space while preserving the information in the state. It is possible to determine whether an error has occurred by a suitable measurement and to apply a unitary correction that returns the state to the code space, without measuring (and hence disturbing) the protected state itself. In general, codewords of a quantum code are entangled states. No code that stores information can protect against all possible errors; instead, codes are designed to correct a specific error set, which should be chosen to match the most likely types of noise. An error set is represented by a set of operators that can multiply the codeword state. Quantum error correction is used to protect information in quantum communication (where quantum states pass through noisy channels) and quantum computation (where quantum states are transformed through a sequence of imperfect computational steps in the presence of environmental decoherence to solve a computational problem). In quantum computation, error correction is just one component of fault-tolerant design.

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arXiv2019

Quantum Steganography over Noisy Channels: Achievability and Bounds

Quantum steganography is the study of hiding secret quantum information by encoding it into what an eavesdropper would perceive as an innocent-looking message. Here we study an explicit steganographic encoding for a sender, Alice, to hide a secret message in the syndromes of an error-correcting code, so that the encoding simulates a given noisy quantum channel that Eve believes to connect Alice and Bob. The actual physical channel connecting Alice and Bob is noisy, but less noisy than Eve believes. We show that for the bit-flip and depolarizing channels Alice can use Eve's lack of knowledge of the channel parameter to encode quantum information steganographically. We give an explicit encoding procedure and calculate the rate at which Alice and Bob can communicate secretly. We also show that our encoding is optimal for nondegenerate quantum codes. We calculate the rate at which secret key must be consumed. Finally, we discuss the possibility of steganographic communication over more general quantum channels, and conjecture a general formula for the steganographic rate.

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arXiv2019

Quantum Data-Syndrome Codes

Performing active quantum error correction to protect fragile quantum states highly depends on the correctness of error information--error syndromes. To obtain reliable error syndromes using imperfect physical circuits, we propose the idea of quantum data-syndrome (DS) codes that are capable of correcting both data qubits and syndrome bits errors. We study fundamental properties of quantum DS codes, including split weight enumerators, generalized MacWilliams identities, and linear programming bounds. In particular, we derive Singleton and Hamming-type upper bounds on degenerate quantum DS codes. Then we study random DS codes and show that random DS codes with a relatively small additional syndrome measurements achieve the Gilbert-Varshamov bound of stabilizer codes. Constructions of quantum DS codes are also discussed. A family of quantum DS codes is based on classical linear block codes, called syndrome measurement codes, so that syndrome bits are encoded in additional redundant stabilizer measurements. Another family of quantum DS codes is CSS-type quantum DS codes based on classical cyclic codes, and this includes the Steane code and the quantum Golay code.

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arXiv2019

Qubit POVMs by destructive weak measurements

Many quantum measurements, such as photodetection, can be destructive. In photodetection, when the detector clicks a photon has been absorbed and destroyed. Yet the lack of a click also gives information about the presence or absence of a photon. In monitoring the emission of photons from a source, one decomposes the strong measurement into a series of weak measurements, which describe the evolution of the state during the measurement process. Motivated by this example of destructive photon detection, a simple model of destructive weak measurements using qubits was studied in [1]. It has shown that the model can achieve any positive-operator valued measurement (POVM) with commuting POVM elements including projective measurements. In this paper, we use a different approach for decomposing any POVM into a series of weak measurements. The process involves three steps: randomly choose, with certain probabilities, a set of linearly independent POVM elements; perform that POVM by a series of destructive weak measurements; output the result of the series of weak measurements with certain probabilities. The probabilities of the outcomes from this process agree with those from the original POVM, and hence this model of destructive weak measurements can perform any qubit POVM.

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arXiv2019

Quantifying non-Markovianity: a quantum resource-theoretic approach

The quantification and characterization of non-Markovian dynamics in quantum systems is an essential endeavor both for the theory of open quantum systems and for a deeper understanding of the effects of non-Markovian noise on quantum technologies. Here, we introduce the robustness of non-Markovianity, an operationally-motivated, optimization-free measure that quantifies the minimum amount of Markovian noise that can be mixed with a non-Markovian evolution before it becomes Markovian. We show that this quantity is a bonafide non-Markovianity measure, since it is faithful, convex, and monotonic under composition with Markovian channels. A two-fold operational interpretation of this measure is provided, with the robustness measure quantifying an advantage in both a state discrimination and a channel discrimination task. Furthermore, we provide a closed-form analytical expression for this measure and show that, quite remarkably, the robustness measure is exactly equal to half the Rivas-Huelga-Plenio (RHP) measure [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{105}, 050403 (2010)]. As a result, we provide a direct operational meaning to the RHP measure while endowing the robustness measure with the physical characterizations of the RHP measure.

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arXiv2018

Decomposing qubit positive-operator valued measurements into continuous destructive weak measurements

It has been shown that any generalized measurement can be decomposed into a sequence of weak measurements corresponding to a stochastic process. However, the weak measurements may require almost arbitrary unitaries, which are unlikely to be realized by any real measurement device. Furthermore, many measurement processes are destructive, like photon counting procedures that terminate once all photons are consumed. One cannot expect to have full control of the evolution of a state under such destructive measurements, and the possible unitaries allow only a limited set of weak measurements. In this paper, we consider a qubit model of destructive weak measurements, which is a toy version of an optical cavity, in which the state of an electromagnetic field mode inside the cavity leaks out and is measured destructively while the vacuum state |0> leaks in to the cavity. At long times, the state of the qubit inevitably evolves to be |0>, and the only available control is the choice of measurement on the external ancilla system. Surprisingly, this very limited model can still perform an arbitrary projective measurement on the qubit in any basis, where the probability of getting an outcome satisfies the usual Born rule. Combining this method with probabilistic post processing, the result can be extended to any generalized measurement with commuting POVM elements. This implies, among other results, that any two-outcome POVM on a qubit can be decomposed into a sequence of destructive weak measurements by this restricted measurement device.

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arXiv2018

Depth reduction for quantum Clifford circuits through Pauli measurements

Clifford circuits play an important role in quantum computation. Gottesman and Chuang proposed a gate teleportation protocol so that a quantum circuit can be implemented by the teleportation circuit with specific ancillary qubits. In particular, an $n$-qubit Clifford circuit $U$ can be implemented by preparing an ancillary stabilizer state $(I\otimes U)|Φ^+\rangle^{\otimes n}$ for teleportation and doing a Pauli correction conditioned on the measurement. In this paper, we provide an alternative procedure to implement a Clifford circuit through Pauli measurements, by preparing $O(1)$ ancillas that are Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) stabilizer states. That is to say, $O(1)$ CSS states are sufficient to implement any Clifford circuit. As an application to fault-tolerant quantum computation, any Clifford circuit can be implemented by $O(1)$ steps of Steane syndrome extraction if clean CSS stabilizer states are available.

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arXiv2018

Non-Markovianity of the Post Markovian Master Equation

An easily solvable quantum master equation has long been sought that takes into account memory effects induced on the system by the bath, i.e., non-Markovian effects. We briefly review the Post-Markovian master equation (PMME), which is relatively easy to solve, and analyze a simple example where solutions obtained exhibit non-Markovianity. We apply the distinguishability measure introduced by Breuer et al., and we also explicitly analyze the divisibility of the associated quantum dynamical maps. We give a mathematical condition on the memory kernel used in the PMME that guarantees non-CP-divisible dynamics.

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arXiv2018

Quantum Steganography over Noiseless Channels: Achievability and Bounds

Quantum steganography is the study of hiding secret quantum information by encoding it into what an eavesdropper would perceive as an innocent-looking message. Here we study an explicit steganographic encoding for Alice to hide her secret message in the syndromes of an error-correcting code, so that the encoding simulates a given noisy quantum channel. We calculate achievable rates of steganographic communication over noiseless quantum channels using this encoding. We give definitions of secrecy and reliability for the communication process, and with these assumptions derive upper bounds on the amount of steganographic communication possible, and show that these bounds match the communication rates achieved with our encoding. This gives a steganographic capacity for a noiseless channel emulating a given noisy channel.

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arXiv2018

Efficient Preparation of Large Block Code Ancilla States for Fault-tolerant Quantum Computation

Fault-tolerant quantum computation (FTQC) schemes that use multi-qubit large block codes can potentially reduce the resource overhead to a great extent. A major obstacle is the requirement of a large number of clean ancilla states of different types without correlated errors inside each block. These ancilla states are usually logical stabilizer states of the data code blocks, which are generally difficult to prepare if the code size is large. Previously we have proposed an ancilla distillation protocol for Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) codes by classical error-correcting codes. It was assumed that the quantum gates in the distillation circuit were perfect; however, in reality, noisy quantum gates may introduce correlated errors that are not treatable by the protocol. In this paper, we show that additional postselection by another classical error-detecting code can be applied to remove almost all correlated errors. Consequently, the revised protocol is fully fault-tolerant and capable of preparing a large set of stabilizer states sufficient for FTQC using large block codes. At the same time, the yield rate can be boosted from $O(t^{-2})$ to $O(1)$ in practice for an $[[n,k,d=2t+1]]$ CSS code. Ancilla preparation for the $[[23,1,7]]$ quantum Golay code is numerically studied in detail through Monte Carlo simulation. The results support the validity of the protocol when the gate failure rate is reasonably low. To the best of our knowledge, this approach is the first attempt to prepare general large block stabilizer states free of correlated errors for FTQC in a fault-tolerant and efficient manner.

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arXiv2018

Discrete spacetime, quantum walks and relativistic wave equations

It has been observed that quantum walks on regular lattices can give rise to wave equations for relativistic particles in the continuum limit. In this paper we define the 3D walk as a product of three coined one-dimensional walks. The factor corresponding to each one-dimensional walk involves two projection operators that act on an internal coin space, each projector is associated with either the "forward" or "backward" direction in that physical dimension. We show that the simple requirement that there is no preferred axis or direction along an axis---that is, that the walk be symmetric under parity transformations and rotations that swap the axes of the cubic lattice---leads to the requirement that the continuum limit of the walk is fully Lorentz invariant. We show further that, in the case of a massive particle, this simple symmetry requirement necessitates that inclusion of antimatter---the use of a four-dimensional internal space---and that the "coin flip" operation is generated by the parity transformation on the internal coin space, while the differences of the projection operators associated to each dimension must all anticommute. Finally, we discuss the leading correction to the continuum limit, and the possibility of distinguishing through experiment between the discrete random walk and the continuum-based Dirac equation as a description of fermion dynamics.

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arXiv2018

Detection of discrete spacetime by matter interferometry

If the structure of spacetime is discrete, then Lorentz symmetry should only be an approximation, valid at long length scales. At finite lattice spacings there will be small corrections to the Dirac evolution that could in principle be experimentally detected. In particular, the lattice structure should be reflected in a modification of the free-particle dispersion relation. We show that these can produce a surprisingly large phase shift between the two arms of an asymmetrical interferometer. This method could be employed to test any model that predicts a direction-dependent dispersion relation. Here, we calculate the size of this phase shift for a particular model, the 3D quantum walk on the body-centered cubic lattice, which has been shown to give rise to the Dirac equation in the continuum limit. Though the details of this model will affect the size of the shift, its magnitude is set largely by dimensional analysis, so there is reason to believe that other models would yield similar results. We find that, with current technology, a modest-sized neutron interferometer could put strong bounds on the size of the lattice spacing. This discreteness could possibly be detected even for lattice spacings at the Planck scale by a suitably scaled-up experiment.

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arXiv2017

Abrupt transitions between Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics in open quantum systems

A rapid restoration of the bath state is usually required to induce Markovian dynamics for an open quantum system, which typically can be realized only in limits such as weak system-bath coupling and infinitely large bath. In this work, we investigate the Markovianity of a qubit system coupled to a single-qubit bath with the qubit bath being continuously refreshed by quantum cooling. A surprising result is that there exists a finite threshold for the cooling rate at which the system transitions from non-Markovian dynamics to Markovian dynamics, which is in sharp contrast to the usual understanding that Markovian dynamics is an asymptotic behavior under the Born-Markov approximation. We also study the time correlation of the bath, and find that the decay rate of bath time correlation is of the same order as the system evolution speed. This suggests that quantum Markovian dynamics can exist beyond the usual short bath correlation limit.

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arXiv2017

In-situ Adaptive Encoding for Asymmetric Quantum Error Correcting Codes

We present techniques that improve the performance of asymmetric stabilizer codes in the presence of unital channels with unknown parameters. Our method estimates the channel parameters using information recovered from syndrome measurements during standard stabilizer quantum error correction and adaptively realigns the codespace to minimize the uncorrectable error rate. We find that for dephasing channels parametrized by a single angle our scheme yields lifetimes dominated by the bit-flip error rate for which the asymmetric code has an improved distance. In the case of general unital channels we are able to learn and exploit orientations of the channel that yield a constant improvement to the code lifetime. In both cases, since our method is adaptive and online, we are able to model the effect of drift in the channel parameters.

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