Executing quantum algorithms on error-corrected logical qubits is a critical step for scalable quantum computing, but the requisite numbers of qubits and physical error rates are demanding for current experimental hardware. Recently, the development of error correcting codes tailored to particular physical noise models has helped relax these requirements. In this work, we propose a qubit encoding and gate protocol for ¹⁷¹Yb neutral atom qubits that converts the dominant physical errors into erasures, that is, errors in known locations. The key idea is to encode qubits in a metastable electronic level, such that gate errors predominantly result in transitions to disjoint subspaces whose populations can be continuously monitored via fluorescence. We estimate that 98% of errors can be converted into erasures. We quantify the benefit of this approach via circuit-level simulations of the surface code, finding a threshold increase from 0.937% to 4.15%. We also observe a larger code distance near the threshold, leading to a faster decrease in the logical error rate for the same number of physical qubits, which is important for near-term implementations. Erasure conversion should benefit any error correcting code, and may also be applied to design new gates and encodings in other qubit platforms.

在纠错的逻辑量子比特上执行量子算法是可扩展量子计算的关键步骤，但是对于当前的实验硬件来说，所需的量子比特数量和物理错误率是有要求的。最近，针对特定物理噪声模型开发的纠错码有助于放宽这些要求。^{在这项工作中，我们为171}提出了一种量子比特编码和门协议Yb 中性原子量子比特将主要的物理错误转换为擦除，即已知位置的错误。关键思想是在亚稳态电子水平上编码量子比特，这样门错误主要导致过渡到不相交的子空间，其种群可以通过荧光连续监测。我们估计 98% 的错误可以转化为擦除。我们通过表面代码的电路级仿真来量化这种方法的好处，发现阈值从 0.937% 增加到 4.15%。我们还观察到阈值附近的代码距离更大，导致相同数量物理量子比特的逻辑错误率更快降低，这对于近期实施很重要。擦除转换应该有利于任何纠错码，