An Incomplete Introduction to Quantum Error Correction

Written report of the Advanced Topics in Quantum Computing seminar at the Technical University of Munich.

Tip

If you attend the seminar mentioned above, please refrain from copying this paper. That would be foolish.

The paper is titled "Incomplete" as it only covers a tiny subset of Quantum Error Correction theory. Let's call it the core ideas¹. In some sense, I wrote this paper for my past self, who couldn't understand why drawing a 2D grid with horizontal and vertical lines would constitute a logical qubit in the stabilizer formalism. That said, I hope the paper helps anyone who stumbles upon it.

Footnotes

1. I initially wanted to publish the paper on arxiv but withdrew my submission since the paper kind of lacks substance. In other words, it isn't good enough. ↩