Shi Jie Samuel Tan

Code switching is a powerful technique in quantum error correction that allows one to leverage the complementary strengths of different codes to achieve fault-tolerant universal quantum computation. However, existing code-switching protocols which encapsulate recent generalized lattice surgery approaches often either require many rounds of measurements to ensure fault-tolerance or suffer from low code rates. We present a single-shot, universal protocol that uses code-switching between high-rate quantum codes to perform fault-tolerant quantum computation. To our best knowledge, our work contains the first universal fault-tolerant quantum computation protocol that achieves what we term single-shot universality that is characterized by (i) single-shot error correction, (ii) single-shot state preparation, as well as (iii) logical gates and logical measurements with constant depth circuits. We achieve this by showing how to perform single-shot code switching between high-rate homological product codes by developing a generalization of Bombin's dimensional jump for color codes and Hillmann et al.'s single-shot lattice surgery for higher-dimensional topological codes. We introduce a vastly simpler recipe to construct 3D homological product codes with transversal CCZ gates that grants immense flexibility in the choice of expander graphs and local codes, allowing us to expand the search space for codes with good parameters and interesting logical gates. Our work opens an alternative path towards universal fault-tolerant quantum computation with low space-time overhead by circumventing the need for magic state distillation.

Harnessing quantum effects in metrology, such as entanglement and coherence, enables enhanced sensitivity in measuring parameters. Despite this, decoherence and time-dependent errors can undermine Heisenberg-limited amplification. To navigate these challenges in realistic experiments for phase estimation of a two-level unitary gate, we introduce a suite of quantum metrology algorithms. These algorithms capitalize on the universality of quantum signal transformation to decouple two interdependent phase parameters into largely orthogonal ones, ensuring that time-dependent errors in one do not compromise the accuracy of learning the other. Our approach combines provably optimal classical estimation with nearly optimal quantum circuit design, achieving unparalleled accuracy of 10−4 radians in standard deviation for estimating extremely small angles in superconducting qubit experiments with low-depth (< 10) circuits. This accuracy surpasses existing alternatives by two orders of magnitude and is adaptable to ion trap gates. We prove both theoretically and numerically the optimality of our algorithm against time-dependent phase error in φ. Remarkably, in the low circuit depth limit, our method’s estimation variance on the time-sensitive parameter φ scales faster than the asymptotic Heisenberg limit as a function of depth, Var(φˆ) ∼ 1/d4. Crucially, our method’s efficacy is rigorously affirmed through an analysis against the quantum Fisher information, a feature lacking in prior art. This analysis underpins our protocol’s ability to achieve unmatched precision, leveraging quantum resources more effectively than has been possible before.