A new class of error-correcting quantum codes is introduced capable of stabilizing qubits against spontaneous decay arising from couplings to statistically independent reservoirs. These quantum codes are based on the idea of using an embedded quantum code and exploiting the classical information available about which qubit has been affected by the environment. They are immediately relevant for quantum computation and information processing using arrays of trapped ions or nuclear spins. Interesting relations between these quantum codes and basic notions of design theory are established.
The recently introduced detected-jump correcting quantum codes are capable of stabilizing qubit-systems against spontaneous decay processes arising from couplings to statistically independent reservoirs. These embedded quantum codes exploit classical
information about which qubit has emitted spontaneously and correspond to an active error-correcting code embedded in a passive error-correcting code. The construction of a family of one detected jump-error correcting quantum codes is shown and the optimal redundancy, encoding and recovery as well as general properties of detected jump-error correcting quantum codes are discussed. By the use of design theory multiple jump-error correcting quantum codes can be constructed. The performance of one jump-error correcting quantum codes under non-ideal conditions is studied numerically by simulating a quantum memory and Grovers algorithm.
We provide a systematic way of constructing entanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting codes via graph states in the scenario of preexisting perfectly protected qubits. It turns out that the preexisting entanglement can help beat the quantum Hamm
ing bound and can enhance (not only behave as an assistance) the performance of the quantum error correction. Furthermore we generalize the error models to the case of not-so-perfectly-protected qubits and introduce the quantity infidelity as a figure of merit and show that our code outperforms also the ordinary quantum error-correcting codes.
The stabilizing properties of one-error correcting jump codes are explored under realistic non-ideal conditions. For this purpose the quantum algorithm of the tent-map is decomposed into a universal set of Hamiltonian quantum gates which ensure perfe
ct correction of spontaneous decay processes under ideal circumstances even if they occur during a gate operation. An entanglement gate is presented which is capable of entangling any two logical qubits of different one-error correcting code spaces. With the help of this gate simultaneous spontaneous decay processes affecting physical qubits of different code spaces can be corrected and decoherence can be suppressed significantly.
We introduce a purely graph-theoretical object, namely the coding clique, to construct quantum errorcorrecting codes. Almost all quantum codes constructed so far are stabilizer (additive) codes and the construction of nonadditive codes, which are pot
entially more efficient, is not as well understood as that of stabilizer codes. Our graphical approach provides a unified and classical way to construct both stabilizer and nonadditive codes. In particular we have explicitly constructed the optimal ((10,24,3)) code and a family of 1-error detecting nonadditive codes with the highest encoding rate so far. In the case of stabilizer codes a thorough search becomes tangible and we have classified all the extremal stabilizer codes up to 8 qubits.
In this paper, based on the nonbinary graph state, we present a systematic way of constructing good non-binary quantum codes, both additive and nonadditive, for systems with integer dimensions. With the help of computer search, which results in many
interesting codes including some nonadditive codes meeting the Singleton bounds, we are able to construct explicitly four families of optimal codes, namely, $[[6,2,3]]_p$, $[[7,3,3]]_p$, $[[8,2,4]]_p$ and $[[8,4,3]]_p$ for any odd dimension $p$ and a family of nonadditive code $((5,p,3))_p$ for arbitrary $p>3$. In the case of composite numbers as dimensions, we also construct a family of stabilizer codes $((6,2cdot p^2,3))_{2p}$ for odd $p$, whose coding subspace is {em not} of a dimension that is a power of the dimension of the physical subsystem.