Quantum Error Correction of Time-correlated Errors

The complexity of the error correction circuitry forces us to design quantum error correction codes capable of correcting a single error per error correction cycle. Yet, time-correlated error are common for physical implementations of quantum systems; an error corrected during the previous cycle may reoccur later due to physical processes specific for each physical implementation of the qubits. In this paper, we study quantum error correction for a restricted class of time-correlated errors in a spin-boson model. The algorithm we propose allows the correction of two errors per error correction cycle, provided that one of them is time-correlated. The algorithm can be applied to any stabilizer code when the two logical qubits $$\mid {\rm 0}_L \rangle$$ and $$\mid {\rm 1}_L \rangle$$ are entangled states of 2n basis states in $${\mathcal{H}}_{2^n}$$ .