Ensemble Dependence of the Critical Exponent at a Quantum Error Correction Threshold

Abstract

In thermodynamics it is common to assume that the choice of ensemble (e.g., micro-canonical, canonical, or grand-canonical) should not affect the underlying physics in the thermodynamics limit. We show that this does not necessarily hold for critical exponents. Examining a simplified model of quantum error correction (single step encoding and decoding by a random unitary) and the behavior of both the fidelity and magic at the corresponding threshold, we find different exponents when using generic channels or supposedly equivalent quantum trajectories. Interestingly, the obtained exponents saturate a recently derived information theoretic bound by Feldman et al. (2026), which we extend from the grand-canonical to the canonical case, including intermediate ensembles which we define. Moreover, even the existence of the transition is shown to be ensemble-dependent.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{dror2026ensemble,
  title = {{Ensemble Dependence of the Critical Exponent at a Quantum Error Correction Threshold}},
  author = {Idan Dror and Moshe Goldstein},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.21886},
  eprint = {2609.21886},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21886},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Ensemble Dependence of the Critical Exponent at a Quantum Error Correction Threshold
AU  - Idan Dror
AU  - Moshe Goldstein
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/18
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.21886
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21886
AB  - In thermodynamics it is common to assume that the choice of ensemble (e.g., micro-canonical, canonical, or grand-canonical) should not affect the underlying physics in the thermodynamics limit. We show that this does not necessarily hold for critical exponents. Examining a simplified model of quantum error correction (single step encoding and decoding by a random unitary) and the behavior of both the fidelity and magic at the corresponding threshold, we find different exponents when using generic channels or supposedly equivalent quantum trajectories. Interestingly, the obtained exponents saturate a recently derived information theoretic bound by Feldman et al. (2026), which we extend from the grand-canonical to the canonical case, including intermediate ensembles which we define. Moreover, even the existence of the transition is shown to be ensemble-dependent.
ER  -

Abstract

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