

Fault-tolerant quantum computation with constant error rate. Theory of fault-tolerant quantum computation. Threshold accuracy for quantum computation. 37th Conference on Foundations of Computer Science (1996). Theory of quantum error-correcting codes. Scheme for reducing decoherence in quantum computer memory. With improved two-qubit gates and the use of intermediate measurements, a stabilized logical qubit can be achieved. These results demonstrate that fault-tolerant circuits enable highly accurate logical primitives in current quantum systems. In addition, we prepare magic states with fidelities that exceed the distillation threshold 7, demonstrating all of the key single-qubit ingredients required for universal fault-tolerant control.
QUANTUM ERROR CORRECTION AND QUANTUM FOUNDATION OFFLINE
The result of fault-tolerant design is an average state preparation and measurement error of 0.6 per cent and a Clifford gate error of 0.3 per cent after offline error correction. When we compare these fault-tolerant protocols to non-fault-tolerant protocols, we see significant reductions in the error rates of the logical primitives in the presence of noise. Here we experimentally demonstrate fault-tolerant circuits for the preparation, measurement, rotation and stabilizer measurement of a Bacon–Shor logical qubit using 13 trapped ion qubits. Although fault-tolerant design works in principle, it has not previously been demonstrated in an error-corrected physical system with native noise characteristics. Fault-tolerant circuits contain the spread of errors while controlling the logical qubit, and are essential for realizing error suppression in practice 3, 4, 5, 6. These extra degrees of freedom enable the detection and correction of errors, but also increase the control complexity of the encoded logical qubit. Quantum error correction protects fragile quantum information by encoding it into a larger quantum system 1, 2.
