Error correction phase transition in noisy random quantum circuits

Abstract

In this work, we study the task of encoding logical information via a noisy quantum circuit. It is known that at superlogarithmic depth, the output of any noisy circuit without reset gates or intermediate measurements becomes indistinguishable from the maximally mixed state, implying that all input information is destroyed. This raises the question of whether there is a low-depth regime where information is preserved as it is encoded into an error-correcting codespace by the circuit. When considering noisy random encoding circuits, our numerical simulations show that there is a sharp phase transition at a critical depth of order $p^{-1}$, where $p$ is the noise rate, such that below this depth threshold quantum information is preserved, whereas after this threshold it is lost. Furthermore, we rigorously prove that this is the best achievable trade-off between depth and noise rate for any noisy circuit encoding a constant rate of information. Thus, random circuits are optimal noisy encoders in this sense.