Approximate Quantum Error Correcting Codes from Conformal Field Theory

Phys Rev Lett. 2024 Nov 22;133(21):210601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.210601.

Abstract

The low-energy subspace of a conformal field theory (CFT) can serve as a quantum error correcting code, with important consequences in holography and quantum gravity. We consider generic (1+1)D CFT codes under extensive local dephasing channels and analyze their error correctability in the thermodynamic limit. We show that (i) there is a finite decoding threshold if and only if the minimal nonzero scaling dimension in the fusion algebra generated by the jump operator of the channel is larger than 1/2 and (ii) the number of protected logical qubits k≥Ω(loglogn), where n is the number of physical qubits. As an application, we show that the one-dimensional quantum critical Ising model has a finite threshold for certain types of dephasing noise. Our general results also imply that a CFT code with continuous symmetry saturates a bound on the recovery fidelity for covariant codes.