Syndrome-Derived Error Rates as a Benchmark of Quantum Hardware

Understand

Quantum error correcting codes are designed to pinpoint exactly when and where errors occur in quantum circuits.

• This feature is the foundation of their primary task: to support fault-tolerant quantum computation.
• However, this feature could used as the basis of benchmarking: By analyzing the outputs of even small-scale quantum error correction circuits, a detailed picture can be constructed of error processes across a quantum device.
• Here we perform an example of such an analysis, using the results of small repetition codes to determine the error rate of each qubit while idle during a syndrome measurement.