Quantum error correction against correlated noise

Abstract

We consider quantum error correction against correlated noise using simple and concatenated Calderbank-Shor-Steane codes as well as $n$-qubit repetition codes. We characterize the performance of various codes by means of the fidelity following the error correction of a single logical qubit in a quantum register. For concatenated codes we find a threshold in the single-qubit error rate below which the encoded qubit is perfectly protected. The threshold depends on the correlation strength of the noise and goes to zero for perfect correlation. Finally, we concatenate the traditional error correcting codes with a decoherence free subspace and evaluate the performance over the whole range from uncorrelated noise to perfectly correlated noise.