Fermionic platforms offer compelling architectures for quantum computing, ranging from topologically protected Majorana-based qubits to fermionic cold atoms. To achieve scalability, however, they require quantum error correction. In this work, we prove that any exact and sufficiently accurate approximate fermionic quantum error correction necessarily requires non-Gaussian operations, beyond the free-fermion regime of quadratic dynamics. This is in sharp contrast to the qubit setting, where the efficiently classically simulable stabilizer operations form the standard framework for quantum error correction. Specifically, we show that the logical space of any non-trivial fermionic error-correcting code contains no pure fermionic Gaussian state, utilizing a fundamental incompatibility between fermionic error correction and Wick's theorem. We further show that the required number of bounded-weight non-Gaussian gates for unitary codeword preparation grows at least linearly with both the code distance and the number of encoded modes, revealing an intrinsic resource overhead that increases simultaneously with error-protection strength and logical capacity. Furthermore, we analyze the performance of fermionic Gaussian operations in entanglement distillation, revealing a distinction from their bosonic counterparts. Our results reveal fundamental difficulties for fermionic error correction from the perspectives of both physical implementation and classical simulation, suggesting connections to fermionic phases of matter and state preparation complexity.
Yi-Fan Tang, I. Roth, P. Faist et al.· 0 citations
We prove that, for an $n$-qubit system of dimension $d=2^n$, every state satisfying $\operatorname{Tr}(\rho^2)\le 1/(d-a_\ast)$, with $a_\ast=0.458327\cdots$, lies inside the stabilizer polytope and is therefore magic-free. Combining this result with general geometric properties of high-dimensional polytopes, we establish quantitative estimates for the Hilbert--Schmidt inradius and volume radius of the stabilizer polytope, and use them to characterize the typicality of magic in random induced states obtained by tracing out a $k$-dimensional subsystem from a $d\times k$-dimensional Haar-random pure state. We prove a sharp phase transition in the probability of such states having magic, whose transition dimension $k_\star$ is bounded between $\Omega(d^2/\log^2d)$ and $\mathcal{O}(d^2)$. We further prove that the number of facets of the stabilizer polytope lies between $\exp[\Omega(d^2/\log^2 d)]$ and $\exp[\mathcal{O}(d^2\log^2 d)]$ employing a result of Bourgain and Milman in convex geometry, substantially improving upon the previous quasipolynomial lower bound and implying that doubly-exponentially many linear inequalities in the number of qubits are required for an exact description of the magic-free region. Overall, our results reveal the near-extremal geometry of the stabilizer polytope and provide a quantitative foundation for understanding the typicality, robustness, and detectability of magic.
Zhen-Huan Liu, Zi-Wen Liu· 1 citation
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