Hardware-Efficient, Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computation with Rydberg Atoms

• Published in: Physical review. X Vol. 12; no. 2; p. 021049
• Main Authors: Cong, Iris, Levine, Harry, Keesling, Alexander, Bluvstein, Dolev, Wang, Sheng-Tao, Lukin, Mikhail D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: College Park American Physical Society 01.06.2022
• Subjects: Arrays; ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS; Computational efficiency; Data processing; Decay; Error analysis; Error correction; Error correction & detection; Fault tolerance; Hardware; Neutral atoms; optical pumping; Platforms; quantum algorithms; quantum computation; Quantum computers; Quantum computing; quantum gates; quantum information processing; Quantum phenomena; quantum protocols; Qubits (quantum computing); Rydberg states; spontaneous emission
• ISSN: 2160-3308; 2160-3308
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.12.021049

Neutral-atom arrays have recently emerged as a promising platform for quantum information processing. One important remaining roadblock for the large-scale application of these systems is the ability to perform error-corrected quantum operations. To entangle the qubits in these systems, atoms are typically excited to Rydberg states, which could decay or give rise to various correlated errors that cannot be addressed directly through traditional methods of fault-tolerant quantum computation. In this work, we provide the first complete characterization of these sources of error in a neutral-atom quantum computer and propose hardware-efficient, fault-tolerant quantum computation schemes that mitigate them. Notably, we develop a novel and distinctly efficient method to address the most important errors associated with the decay of atomic qubits to states outside of the computational subspace. These advances allow us to significantly reduce the resource cost for fault-tolerant quantum computation compared to existing, general-purpose schemes. Our protocols can be implemented in the near term using state-of-the-art neutral-atom platforms with qubits encoded in both alkali and alkaline-earth atoms.