Scalable Quantum Computation in the Presence of Large Detected-Error Rates

The tolerable erasure error rate for scalable quantum computation is shown to be at least 0.292, given standard scalability assumptions. This bound is obtained by implementing computations with generic stabilizer code teleportation steps that combine the necessary operations with error correction. An interesting consequence of the technique is that the only errors that affect the maximum tolerable error rate are storage and Bell measurement errors. If storage errors are negligible, then any detected Bell measurement error below 1/2 is permissible. Another consequence of the technique is that the maximum tolerable depolarizing error rate is dominated by how well one can prepare the required encoded states. For example, if storage and Bell measurement errors are relatively small, then independent depolarizing errors with error rate close to 0.1 per qubit are tolerable in the prepared states. The implementation overhead is dominated by the efficiency with which the required encoded states can be prepared. At present, this efficiency is very low, particularly for error rates close to the maximum tolerable ones.