Quantum Information Encoding from Stabilizing Dynamics

In order to ensure reliable quantum information processing in realistic noisy devices, it is necessary to resort to suitable error correction and avoidance strategies. A key aspect of these techniques is how the relevant information is logically mapped (encoded) in the noise-protected codewords. Here, we study how to engineer Markov dynamics that transfers the desired information from an "upload" subsystem to the target error-correcting or noiseless quantum code, effectively acting as a dissipative quantum encoder. Dissipative encoders offer advantages with respect to standard unitary encoding protocols based on quantum circuits, as they can associate the target states to non-trivial basins of attraction, and thus tolerate more general initializations in the upload qubits. In particular, we show that devising continuous-time dissipative encoders requires the target code to be invariant, making this task more delicate as compared to its discrete-time counterpart. Nonetheless, we show how this is always possible for stabilizer quantum error-correcting codes.