1997/12/19 by John Preskill, Preskill, John
Computer Science · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advancements in Semiconductor Devices and Circuit Design #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/9712048
58 pages with 7 PostScript figures, LaTeX, uses sprocl.sty and psfig, to appear in "Introduction to Quantum Computation," edited by H.-K. Lo, S. Popescu, and T. P. Spiller
arxiv created 1997/12/19 · openalex publication_date 1997/12/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The discovery of quantum error correction has greatly improved the long-term prospects for quantum computing technology. Encoded quantum information can be protected from errors that arise due to uncontrolled interactions with the environment, or due to imperfect implementations of quantum logical operations. Recovery from errors can work effectively even if occasional mistakes occur during the recovery procedure. Furthermore, encoded quantum information can be processed without serious propagation of errors. In principle, an arbitrarily long quantum computation can be performed reliably, provided that the average probability of error per gate is less than a certain critical value, the accuracy threshold. It may be possible to incorporate intrinsic fault tolerance into the design of quantum computing hardware, perhaps by invoking topological Aharonov-Bohm interactions to process quantum information.