Complete description of fault-tolerant quantum gate operations for topological Majorana qubit systems

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of fault-tolerant quantum gate operations in topological Majorana qubit systems, focusing on braiding-based gates and their generalizations for improved quantum computation robustness.

Contribution

It offers a complete characterization and generalization of gate operations for Majorana-based topological qubits, including multiple qubit configurations and transformations.

Findings

Recapitulates gate calculations for 2- and 4-MF systems.

Generalizes gate operations for 6-MF systems.

Provides a framework for future topological qubit development.

Abstract

Among the list of major threats to quantum computation, quantum decoherence poses one of the largest because it generates losses to the environment within a computational system which cannot be recovered via error correction methods. These methods require the assumption that the environmental interaction forces the qubit state into some linear combination of qubit eigenstates. In reality, the environment causes the qubit to enter into a mixed state where the original is no longer recoverable. A promising solution to this problem bases the computational states on the low lying energy excitations within topological materials. The existence of these states is protected by a global parameter within the Hamiltonian which prevents the computational states from coupling locally and decohering. In this paper, the qubit is based on nonlocal, topological Majorana fermions (MF), and the gate operations are generated by swapping or braiding the positions of said MF. The algorithmic calculation for such gate operations is well known, but, the opposite gates-to-braid calculation is currently underdeveloped. Additionally, because one may choose from a number of different possible qubit definitions, the resultant gate operations from calculation to calculation appear different. Here, the calculations for the two- and four-MF cases are recapitulated for the sake of logical flow. This set of gates serves as the foundation for the understanding and construction of the six-MF cases. Using these, a full characterization of the system is made by completely generalizing the list of gates and transformations between possible qubit definitions. A complete description of this system is desirable and will hopefully serve future iterations of topological qubits.