Spatial noise filtering through error correction for quantum sensing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum error correction method that leverages spatial noise correlations to improve quantum sensing accuracy, overcoming limitations of dynamical decoupling in correcting certain noise types.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel quantum error correction scheme that targets spatially correlated noise, enhancing quantum sensing capabilities beyond existing dynamical decoupling methods.

Findings

Error correction can address noise coupling identically to signals.

Spatial correlations are exploited to improve noise filtering.

Explicit examples demonstrate tailored error-correcting codes.

Abstract

Quantum systems can be used to measure various quantities in their environment with high precision. Often, however, their sensitivity is limited by the decohering effects of this same environment. Dynamical decoupling schemes are widely used to filter environmental noise from signals, but their performance is limited by the spectral properties of the signal and noise at hand. Quantum error correction schemes have therefore emerged as a complementary technique without the same limitations. To date, however, they have failed to correct the dominant noise type in many quantum sensors, which couples to each qubit in a sensor in the same way as the signal. Here we show how quantum error correction can correct for such noise, which dynamical decoupling can only partially address. Whereas dynamical decoupling exploits temporal noise correlations in signal and noise, our scheme exploits spatial correlations. We give explicit examples in small quantum devices and demonstrate a method by which error-correcting codes can be tailored to their noise.