Differentiable Maximum Likelihood Noise Estimation for Quantum Error Correction
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866915812134092800 |
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| author | Cao, Hanyan Feng, Dongyang Ye, Cheng Pan, Feng |
| author_facet | Cao, Hanyan Feng, Dongyang Ye, Cheng Pan, Feng |
| contents | Accurate noise estimation is essential for fault-tolerant quantum computing, as decoding performance depends critically on the fidelity of the circuit-level noise parameters. In this work, we introduce a differentiable Maximum Likelihood Estimation (dMLE) framework that enables exact, efficient, and fully differentiable computation of syndrome log-likelihoods, allowing circuit-level noise parameters to be optimized directly via gradient descent. Leveraging the exact Planar solver for repetition codes and a novel, simplified Tensor Network (TN) architecture combined with optimized contraction path finding for surface codes, our method achieves tractable and fully differentiable likelihood evaluation even for distance 5 surface codes with up to 25 rounds. Our method recovers the underlying error probabilities with near-exact precision in simulations and reduces logical error rates by up to 30.6(3)% for repetition codes and 8.1(2)% for surface codes on experimental data from Google's processor compared to previous state-of-the-art methods: correlation analysis and Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods. Our approach yields provably optimal, decoder-independent error priors by directly maximizing the syndrome likelihood, offering a powerful noise estimation and control tool for unlocking the full potential of current and future error-corrected quantum processors. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_19722 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Differentiable Maximum Likelihood Noise Estimation for Quantum Error Correction Cao, Hanyan Feng, Dongyang Ye, Cheng Pan, Feng Quantum Physics Statistical Mechanics Accurate noise estimation is essential for fault-tolerant quantum computing, as decoding performance depends critically on the fidelity of the circuit-level noise parameters. In this work, we introduce a differentiable Maximum Likelihood Estimation (dMLE) framework that enables exact, efficient, and fully differentiable computation of syndrome log-likelihoods, allowing circuit-level noise parameters to be optimized directly via gradient descent. Leveraging the exact Planar solver for repetition codes and a novel, simplified Tensor Network (TN) architecture combined with optimized contraction path finding for surface codes, our method achieves tractable and fully differentiable likelihood evaluation even for distance 5 surface codes with up to 25 rounds. Our method recovers the underlying error probabilities with near-exact precision in simulations and reduces logical error rates by up to 30.6(3)% for repetition codes and 8.1(2)% for surface codes on experimental data from Google's processor compared to previous state-of-the-art methods: correlation analysis and Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods. Our approach yields provably optimal, decoder-independent error priors by directly maximizing the syndrome likelihood, offering a powerful noise estimation and control tool for unlocking the full potential of current and future error-corrected quantum processors. |
| title | Differentiable Maximum Likelihood Noise Estimation for Quantum Error Correction |
| topic | Quantum Physics Statistical Mechanics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.19722 |