Improved quantum processor logical error rates via correction and detection.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42271021.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41586-026-10628-y.
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Abstract
Performing quantum algorithms for critical problems in physics and chemistry requires substantially lower error rates than the physical error rates of present quantum computers. Achieving such low logical error rates requires quantum error correction<sup>1,2</sup> and physical error rates below a critical threshold value<sup>3-8</sup>. We experimentally demonstrate on a trapped-ion quantum charge-coupled device (QCCD)<sup>9,10</sup> improvements in logical error rates ranging from 11× to 800× compared with several physical circuit baselines, including quantum computation on multiple qubits. Our results hinge on two quantum error correction code constructions optimized for an ion-trap processor: a 12-qubit code encoding two qubits inspired by Knill<sup>11</sup> and a 16-qubit tesseract colour code encoding four qubits<sup>12,13</sup>. These constructions are combined with a scalable method of error detection and post-selection to achieve reduced logical error rates. Our results show that state-of-the-art quantum devices are already able to make use of fault tolerance and error correction to strongly suppress errors in non-trivial quantum circuit computations.