Approximation of realistic errors by Clifford channels and Pauli measurements
Mauricio Gutiérrez, Lukas Svec, Alexander Vargo, Kenneth R. Brown · Physical Review A · 2013
The Gottesman-Knill theorem allows for the efficient simulation of stabilizer-based quantum error-correction circuits. Errors in these circuits are commonly modeled as depolarizing channels by using Monte Carlo methods to insert Pauli gates randomly throughout the circuit. Although convenient, these channels are poor approximations of common, realistic channels such as amplitude damping. Here we analyze a larger set of efficiently simulable error channels by allowing the random insertion of any one-qubit gate or measurement that can be efficiently simulated within the stabilizer formalism. Our error channels are shown to be a viable method for accurately approximating realistic error channels.