Glossary
Every technical term this platform uses, with what it means and — the part that is harder to find elsewhere — the mistake it prevents. On this subject the intuitive reading is often the wrong one, so each entry says what a reader would otherwise get wrong.
Error correction
- Depolarizing noisealso depolarizing
The simplest useful noise model: with some probability, a random Pauli error replaces the intended state.
Easy to get wrong: It is the friendliest realistic model. A decoder that only works under depolarizing noise has not been shown to work.
Circuits
- Pauli
The three basic single-qubit errors and operations: X, Y and Z.
Easy to get wrong: Y is not a separate kind of error — it is X and Z together, which is why a code that catches both catches Y automatically.
Seen in use on /qec/syndromes