Lesson plan
Threshold theorem
In quantum computing, the threshold theorem (or quantum fault-tolerance theorem) states that a quantum computer with a physical error rate below a certain threshold can, through application of quantum error correction schemes, suppress the logical error rate to arbitrarily low levels. This shows that quantum computers can be made fault-tolerant, as an analogue to von Neumann's threshold theorem for classical computation. This result was proven independently (for various error models) by the groups of Dorit Aharonov and Michael Ben-Or; Emanuel Knill, Raymond Laflamme, and Wojciech Zurek; and Alexei Kitaev. These results built on a paper of Peter Shor, which proved a weaker version of the threshold theorem.
Article summary
In quantum computing, the threshold theorem (or quantum fault-tolerance theorem) states that a quantum computer with a physical error rate below a certain threshold can, through application of quantum error correction schemes, suppress the logical error rate to arbitrarily low levels. This shows that quantum computers can be made fault-tolerant, as an analogue to von Neumann's threshold theorem for classical computation. This result was proven independently (for various error models) by the groups of Dorit Aharonov and Michael Ben-Or; Emanuel Knill, Raymond Laflamme, and Wojciech Zurek; and Alexei Kitaev. These results built on a paper of Peter Shor, which proved a weaker version of the threshold theorem.
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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