Dominic Williamson

In pursuit of large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computation, quantum low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes have been established as promising candidates for low-overhead memory when compared to conventional approaches based on surface codes. Performing fault-tolerant logical computation on QLDPC memory, however, has been a long standing challenge in theory and in practice. In this work, we propose a new primitive, which we call an extractor system, that can augment any QLDPC memory into a computational block well-suited for Pauli-based computation. In particular, any logical Pauli operator supported on the memory can be fault-tolerantly measured in one logical cycle, consisting of O(d) physical syndrome measurement cycles, without rearranging qubit connectivity. We further propose a fixed-connectivity, LDPC architecture built by connecting many extractor-augmented computational (EAC) blocks with bridge systems. When combined with any user-defined source of high fidelity \ket{T} states, our architecture can implement universal quantum circuits via parallel logical measurements, such that all single-block Clifford gates are compiled away. The size of an extractor on an n qubit code is \tilde{O}(n), where the precise overhead has immense room for practical optimizations.

We show how to perform scalable fault-tolerant non-Clifford gates in two dimensions by introducing domain walls between the surface code and a non-Abelian topological code whose codespace is stabilized by Clifford operators. We formulate a path integral framework which provides both a macroscopic picture for different logical gates as well as a way to derive the associated microscopic circuits. We present explicit protocols and planar non-Clifford circuits that implement non-Clifford logic gates on both surface codes as well as color codes on different geometries. The logical action of the protocol is determined by the spacetime geometry, using the same bulk circuit, composed of simple 2D local circuits of similar complexity to commonly used stabilizer-readout circuits. We present fault-tolerant schemes for logical Clifford measurements as well as diagonal unitary gates in the third level of the Clifford hierarchy such as T, CS and CCZ gate. We also show an equivalence between our approach and prior proposals where a 2D array of qubits reproduces the action of a transversal gate in a 3D stabilizer code over time, thus, establishing a new connection between 3D codes and 2D non-Abelian topological phases. We prove a threshold theorem for our protocols under local stochastic circuit noise using a just-in-time decoder to correct the non-Abelian code.

Abstract Fracton phases exhibit striking behavior which appears to render them beyond the standard topological quantum field theory (TQFT) paradigm for classifying gapped quantum matter. Here, we explore fracton phases from the perspective of defect TQFTs and show that topological defect networks-networks of topological defects embedded in stratified 3+1D TQFTs-provide a unified framework for describing various types of gapped fracton phases. In this picture, the sub-dimensional excitations characteristic of fractonic matter are a consequence of mobility restrictions imposed by the defect network. We conjecture that all gapped phases, including fracton phases, admit a topological defect network description and support this claim by explicitly providing such a construction for many well-known fracton models, including the X-Cube and Haah's B code. To highlight the generality of our framework, we also provide a defect network construction of a novel fracton phase hosting non-Abelian fractons. As a byproduct of this construction, we obtain a generalized membrane-net description for fractonic ground states as well as an argument that our conjecture implies no topological fracton phases exist in 2+1D gapped systems. Our work also sheds light on new techniques for constructing higher order gapped boundaries of 3+1D TQFTs.

Abstract We present a scheme for universal topological quantum computation based on Clifford complete braiding and fusion of symmetry defects in the 3-Fermion anyon theory, supplemented with magic state injection. We formulate a fault-tolerant measurement-based realisation of this computational scheme on the lattice using ground states of the Walker--Wang model for the 3-Fermion anyon theory with symmetry defects. The Walker--Wang measurement-based topological quantum computation paradigm that we introduce provides a general construction of computational resource states with thermally stable symmetry-protected topological order. We also demonstrate how symmetry defects of the 3-Fermion anyon theory can be realized in a 2D subsystem code due to Bombin -- pointing to an alternative implementation of our 3-Fermion defect computation scheme via code deformations.