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1. Erasure conversion in a high-fidelity Rydberg quantum simulator

   Scholl, Pascal; Shaw, Adam; Tsai, Richard; Finkelstein, Ran; Choi, Joonhee; Endres, Manuel (October 2023, Nature)

   Minimizing and understanding errors is critical for quantum science, both in noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) devices1 and for the quest towards fault-tolerant quantum computation2,3. Rydberg arrays have emerged as a prominent platform in this context4 with impressive system sizes5,6 and proposals suggesting how error-correction thresholds could be significantly improved by detecting leakage errors with single-atom resolution7,8, a form of erasure error conversion9,10,11,12. However, two-qubit entanglement fidelities in Rydberg atom arrays13,14 have lagged behind competitors15,16 and this type of erasure conversion is yet to be realized for matter-based qubits in general. Here we demonstrate both erasure conversion and high-fidelity Bell state generation using a Rydberg quantum simulator5,6,17,18. When excising data with erasure errors observed via fast imaging of alkaline-earth atoms19,20,21,22, we achieve a Bell state fidelity of ≥0.9971−13+10, which improves to ≥0.9985−12+7 when correcting for remaining state-preparation errors. We further apply erasure conversion in a quantum simulation experiment for quasi-adiabatic preparation of long-range order across a quantum phase transition, and reveal the otherwise hidden impact of these errors on the simulation outcome. Our work demonstrates the capability for Rydberg-based entanglement to reach fidelities in the 0.999 regime, with higher fidelities a question of technical improvements, and shows how erasure conversion can be utilized in NISQ devices. These techniques could be translated directly to quantum-error-correction codes with the addition of long-lived qubits7,22,23,24. 

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2. High-Threshold Codes for Neutral-Atom Qubits with Biased Erasure Errors

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.13.041013  

   Sahay, Kaavya; Jin, Junlan; Claes, Jahan; Thompson, Jeff D.; Puri, Shruti (October 2023, Physical Review X)

   The requirements for fault-tolerant quantum error correction can be simplified by leveraging structure in the noise of the underlying hardware. In this work, we identify a new type of structured noise motivated by neutral-atom qubits, biased erasure errors, which arises when qubit errors are dominated by detectable leakage from only one of the computational states of the qubit. We study the performance of this model using gate-level simulations of the XZZX surface code. Using the predicted erasure fraction and bias of metastable 171Yb qubits, we find a threshold of 8.2% for two-qubit gate errors, which is 1.9 times higher than the threshold for unbiased erasures and 7.5 times higher than the threshold for depolarizing errors. Surprisingly, the improved threshold is achieved without bias-preserving controlled-not gates and, instead, results from the lower noise entropy in this model. We also introduce an XZZX cluster state construction for measurement-based error correction, hybrid fusion, that is optimized for this noise model. By combining fusion operations and deterministic entangling gates, this construction preserves the intrinsic symmetry of the XZZX code, leading to a higher threshold of 10.3% and enabling the use of rectangular codes with fewer qubits. We discuss a potential physical implementation using a single plane of atoms and movable tweezers. 

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3. Erasure conversion in a high-fidelity Rydberg quantum simulator

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06516-4  

   Scholl, Pascal; Shaw, Adam L.; Tsai, Richard Bing-Shiun; Finkelstein, Ran; Choi, Joonhee; Endres, Manuel (October 2023, Nature)

   Abstract Minimizing and understanding errors is critical for quantum science, both in noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) devices¹and for the quest towards fault-tolerant quantum computation^2,3. Rydberg arrays have emerged as a prominent platform in this context⁴with impressive system sizes^5,6and proposals suggesting how error-correction thresholds could be significantly improved by detecting leakage errors with single-atom resolution^7,8, a form of erasure error conversion^9–12. However, two-qubit entanglement fidelities in Rydberg atom arrays^13,14have lagged behind competitors^15,16and this type of erasure conversion is yet to be realized for matter-based qubits in general. Here we demonstrate both erasure conversion and high-fidelity Bell state generation using a Rydberg quantum simulator^5,6,17,18. When excising data with erasure errors observed via fast imaging of alkaline-earth atoms^19–22, we achieve a Bell state fidelity of$$\ge 0.997{1}_{-13}^{+10}$$ $\ge 0.9971_{-13}^{+10}$, which improves to$$\ge 0.998{5}_{-12}^{+7}$$ $\ge 0.9985_{-12}^{+7}$when correcting for remaining state-preparation errors. We further apply erasure conversion in a quantum simulation experiment for quasi-adiabatic preparation of long-range order across a quantum phase transition, and reveal the otherwise hidden impact of these errors on the simulation outcome. Our work demonstrates the capability for Rydberg-based entanglement to reach fidelities in the 0.999 regime, with higher fidelities a question of technical improvements, and shows how erasure conversion can be utilized in NISQ devices. These techniques could be translated directly to quantum-error-correction codes with the addition of long-lived qubits^7,22–24. 

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4. Optimistic Entanglement Purification in Quantum Networks

   https://doi.org/10.1109/QCE57702.2023.00129  

   Mobayenjarihani, Mohammad; Vardoyan, Gayane; Towsley, Don (September 2023, IEEE)

   Noise and photon loss encountered on quantum channels pose a major challenge for reliable entanglement generation in quantum networks. In near-term networks, heralding is required to inform endpoints of successfully generated entanglement. If after heralding, entanglement fidelity is too low, entanglement purification may be utilized to probabilistically increase fidelity. Traditionally, purification protocols proceed as follows: generate heralded EPR pairs, execute a series of quantum operations on two or more pairs between two nodes, and classically communicate results to check for success. Purification may require several rounds while qubits are stored in memories, vulnerable to decoherence. In this work, we explore notions of optimistic purification, wherein classical communication required for heralding and purification is delayed, possibly to the end of the process. Optimism reduces the overall time EPR pairs are stored in memory, increasing fidelity while possibly decreasing EPR pair rate due to decreased heralding and purification failure. We apply optimism to the entanglement pumping scheme, ground- and satellite-based EPR generation sources, and current state-of-the-art purification circuits that include several measurement and purification checkpoints. We evaluate performance in view of a number of parameters, including link length, EPR source rate and fidelity; and memory coherence time. We show that while our optimistic protocol increases fidelity, the traditional approach may even decrease fidelity for longer distances. We study the trade-off between rate and fidelity under entanglement-based QKD, and find that optimistic schemes can yield higher rates compared to non-optimistic counterparts, with most advantages seen in scenarios with low initial fidelity and short coherence times. 

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5. Replica topological order in quantum mixed states and quantum error correction

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.125106  

   Li, Zhuan; Mong, Roger_S K (March 2025, Physical Review B)

   Topological phases of matter offer a promising platform for quantum computation and quantum error cor- rection. Nevertheless, unlike its counterpart in pure states, descriptions of topological order in mixed states remain relatively underexplored. Our work gives two definitions for replica topological order in mixed states, which involve n copies of density matrices of the mixed state. Our framework categorizes topological orders in mixed states as either quantum, classical, or trivial, depending on the type of information that can be encoded. For the case of the toric code model in the presence of decoherence, we associate for each phase a quantum channel and describes the structure of the code space. We show that in the quantum-topological phase, there exists a postselection-based error correction protocol that recovers the quantum information, while in the classical-topological phase, the quantum information has decohere and cannot be fully recovered. We accomplish this by describing the mixed state as a projected entangled pairs state (PEPS) and identifying the symmetry-protected topological order of its boundary state to the bulk topology. Using this formalism, we enumerate all the possible mixed state phases which result from applying a local decoherence channel to the toric code. In addition to the classical-topological phases that have been previously reported on, we also find mixed states exhibiting chiral topological order. We discuss the extent that our findings can be extrapolated to n → 1 limit. 

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