Correlated Atom Loss as a Resource for Quantum Error Correction

TL;DR

This paper presents a decoding strategy for neutral-atom quantum processors that exploits correlated atom loss to significantly improve quantum error correction performance and increase loss thresholds.

Contribution

It introduces a loss-aware decoding method that leverages correlations in atom loss, enhancing error correction and robustness in quantum computing.

Findings

Achieves up to tenfold reduction in logical error probability.

Increases loss threshold from 3.2% to 4%.

Effective in regimes with partial loss correlation.

Abstract

Atom loss is a dominant error source in neutral-atom quantum processors, yet its correlated structure remains largely unexploited by existing quantum error correction decoders. We analyze the performance of the surface code equipped with teleportation-based loss-detection units for neutral-atom quantum processors subject to circuit-level, partially correlated atom loss and depolarizing noise. We introduce and implement a decoding strategy that exploits loss correlations, effectively converting the \textit{delayed} erasure channels stemming from atom loss to erasure channels. The decoder constructs a loss graph and dynamically updates loss probabilities, a procedure that is highly parallelizable and compatible with real-time operation. Compared to a decoder that assumes independent loss events, our approach achieves up to an order-of-magnitude reduction in logical error probability and increases the loss threshold from $3.2\%$ to $4\%$. Our approach extends to experimentally relevant regimes with partially correlated loss, demonstrating robust gains beyond the idealized fully correlated setting.