Surface Code Stabilizer Measurements for Rydberg Atoms

Understand

We consider stabilizer measurements for surface codes with neutral atoms and identify gate protocols that minimize logical error rates in the presence of a fundamental error source -- spontaneous emission from Rydberg states.

• We demonstrate that logical error rates are minimized by protocols that prevent the propagation of Rydberg leakage errors and not by protocols that minimize the physical two-qubit error rate.
• We provide laser-pulse-level gate protocols to counter these errors.
• These protocols significantly reduce the logical error rate for implementations of surface codes involving one or two species of atoms.