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Shared entanglement broadens the recipe for quantum error correction

Aug 2, 2006

Todd Brun, Igor Devetak and Min-Hsiu Hsieh develop a general way to turn classical error-correcting codes into quantum codes when sender and receiver share entangled qubits beforehand. This removes a constraint on which classical codes can be used.

Why it matters

The method makes a wider range of classical coding tools available for protecting quantum information, at the cost of entanglement shared in advance.

Todd Brun · Igor Devetak · Min-Hsiu Hsieh

See it on the timeline

Gottesman introduces the stabilizer formalism for quantum error correction (Apr 29, 1996)
Steane, Calderbank and Shor find a recipe for building quantum codes (1996)
Six researchers show how to teleport an unknown quantum state (Mar 29, 1993)

Sources (2)

arXiv (Brun, Devetak and Hsieh) Catalytic quantum error correction
Primary sourceAug 2, 2006

“We develop the theory of entanglement-assisted quantum error correcting (EAQEC) codes, a generalization of the stabilizer formalism to the setting in which the sender and receiver have access to pre-shared entanglement. Conventional stabilizer codes are equivalent to dual-containing symplectic codes. In contrast, EAQEC codes do not require the dual-containing condition, which greatly simplifies their construction. We show how any quaternary classical code can be made into a EAQEC code.”
arXiv (Brun, Devetak and Hsieh; published in Science) Correcting Quantum Errors with Entanglement
Primary sourceOct 11, 2006

“We show how entanglement shared between encoder and decoder can simplify the theory of quantum error correction.”

Added Oct 27, 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will review it.

Shared entanglement broadens the recipe for quantum error correction

Why it matters

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