Optimal Locality and Parameter Tradeoffs for Subsystem Codes

We study the tradeoffs between the locality and parameters of subsystem codes. We prove lower bounds on both the number and lengths of interactions in any $D$-dimensional embedding of a subsystem code. Specifically, we show that any embedding of a subsystem code with parameters $[[n,k,d]]$ into $\mathbb{R}^D$ must have at least $M^*$ interactions of length at least $\ell^*$, where $$M^* = \Omega(\max(k,d)), \quad\text{and}\quad \ell^* = \Omega\bigg(\max\bigg(\frac{d}{n^\frac{D-1}{D}}, \bigg(\frac{kd^\frac{1}{D-1}}{n}\bigg)^\frac{D-1}{D}\bigg)\bigg).$$ We also give tradeoffs between the locality and parameters of commuting projector codes in $D$-dimensions, generalizing a result of Dai and Li. We provide explicit constructions of embedded codes that show our bounds are optimal in both the interaction count and interaction length.