PIRSA:17100055

Poking holes and cutting corners to achieve Clifford gates with the surface code

Brown, B. (2017). Poking holes and cutting corners to achieve Clifford gates with the surface code . Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/17100055

Brown, Benjamin. Poking holes and cutting corners to achieve Clifford gates with the surface code . Perimeter Institute, Oct. 18, 2017, https://pirsa.org/17100055 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:17100055,
            doi = {10.48660/17100055},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/17100055},
            author = {Brown, Benjamin},
            keywords = {Other},
            language = {en},
            title = {Poking holes and cutting corners to achieve Clifford gates with the surface code },
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2017},
            month = {oct},
            note = {PIRSA:17100055 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Benjamin Brown University of Sydney

DOI 10.48660/17100055
Collection
Talk Type Scientific Series
Subject

Abstract

The surface code is currently the leading proposal to achieve fault-tolerant quantum computation. Among its strengths are the plethora of known ways in which fault-tolerant Clifford operations can be performed, namely, by deforming the topology of the surface, by the fusion and splitting of codes, and even by braiding engineered Majorana modes using twist defects. Here, we present a unified framework to describe these methods, which can be used to better compare different schemes and to facilitate the design of hybrid schemes. Our unification includes the identification of twist defects with the corners of the planar code. This identification enables us to perform single-qubit Clifford gates by exchanging the corners of the planar code via code deformation. We analyze ways in which different schemes can be combined and propose a new logical encoding. We also show how all of the Clifford gates can be implemented with the planar code, without loss of distance, using code deformations, thus offering an attractive alternative to ancilla-mediated schemes to complete the Clifford group with lattice surgery.