Surface Code Stabilizer Measurements for Rydberg Atoms

TL;DR

This paper develops optimized gate protocols for surface code stabilizer measurements using Rydberg atoms, focusing on minimizing logical error rates caused by spontaneous emission, thereby advancing fault-tolerant quantum computing with neutral atoms.

Contribution

It introduces laser-pulse-level gate protocols that prevent error propagation, significantly reducing logical errors in surface code implementations with neutral atoms.

Findings

Protocols prevent Rydberg leakage error propagation

Logical error rates are minimized by specific gate protocols

Implementation with one or two atom species shows significant error reduction

Abstract

We consider stabilizer measurements for surface codes with neutral atoms and identify gate protocols that minimize logical error rates in the presence of a fundamental error source -- spontaneous emission from Rydberg states. We demonstrate that logical error rates are minimized by protocols that prevent the propagation of Rydberg leakage errors and not by protocols that minimize the physical two-qubit error rate. We provide laser-pulse-level gate protocols to counter these errors. These protocols significantly reduce the logical error rate for implementations of surface codes involving one or two species of atoms. Our work demonstrates the importance of optimizing quantum gates for logical errors in addition to gate fidelities and opens the way to the efficient realization of surface codes with neutral atoms.