Deflating quantum error-correcting codes
Abstract
In this work, we introduce a technique for reducing the length of a quantum stabilizer code, and we call this deflation of the code. Deflation can be seen as a generalization of the well-known puncturing and shortening techniques in cases where more than a single qudit is removed. We show that the parameters of the deflated quantum code can be controlled, and argue that a similar approach is not as beneficial when applied to classical linear codes. Furthermore, it is shown that deflation introduces additional freedom compared to applying just puncturing and shortening consecutively. We exemplify that it is possible to obtain better parameters by deflating a code rather than consecutively using puncturing and shortening.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.15887,
title = {Deflating quantum error-correcting codes},
author = {Jaron Skovsted Gundersen and Rene Bødker Christensen and Petar Popovski and Rafał Wisniewski},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.15887},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Submitted to IEEE transactions on information theory November 21, 2025