English

Loss-biased fault-tolerant quantum error correction

Quantum Physics 2026-04-24 v1

Abstract

We investigate the limits of quantum error correction (QEC) in neutral-atom processors approaching high-fidelity gates and fast cycle times. We show that shorter QEC cycles amplify platform-specific errors, notably Rydberg excitation hopping, and hinder decay of residual Rydberg population, leading to non-Markovian correlated errors that degrade logical performance. To address this, we introduce loss biasing, where spurious Rydberg excitations are rapidly converted into atom loss via mid-circuit ionization, transforming errors into erasure-like noise and suppressing their propagation. Loss biasing restores the fault-tolerant logical error scaling for intra-cycle Pauli errors; furthermore, we argue that when supported with loss-aware decoding, it can achieve the optimal scaling of erasures while enabling shorter QEC cycles with reduced hardware overhead. We outline an implementation using fast autoionization in alkaline-earth(-like) atoms, establishing loss biasing as a practical route toward fault-tolerant quantum computing with sub-millisecond QEC cycles.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.21876,
  title  = {Loss-biased fault-tolerant quantum error correction},
  author = {Laura Pecorari and Gavin K. Brennen and Stanimir S. Kondov and Guido Pupillo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.21876},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

6+3 pages, 3+1 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:32:48.846Z