Coherent errors, syndrome extraction and the Robustness of Magic in stabiliser codes
Abstract
Coherent errors leave stabiliser-code-encoded magic states in superpositions of syndrome sectors. We ask how much magic these coherent errors add, and whether syndrome extraction depletes logical magic. Using Robustness of Magic, we show that, for a unitary error U on a correctable region which supports no stabiliser, the encoded state has the same robustness as the logical state plus one copy of the Choi state of U , in every stabiliser code encoding. Syndrome extraction removes this copy, returning the logical robustness. The removed magic is positive for every non-Clifford error: adding a non-stabiliser state to any state multiplies one plus the robustness by a (tightly- bounded) factor above one. The magic capacity of two-qubit gates Clifford-equivalent to diagonal or single-qubit gates is equal to their Choi-state robustness. We give a linear-algebraic test for when a Clifford error makes syndrome extraction measure a logical operator, and give magic lifetimes of stored single-qubit magic states under Pauli noise. Choosing the plane of the stored state extends these lifetimes about 1.5x on rotated surface codes under low code-capacity depolarising noise. We identify states and channels in odd-prime dimension for which Wigner negativity and robustness show equal lifetimes.
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BibTeX
@misc{bozzetto2026coherent,
title = {{Coherent errors, syndrome extraction and the Robustness of Magic in stabiliser codes}},
author = {Enrico Bozzetto and Jonte R. Hance},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.38554},
eprint = {2610.38554},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.38554},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Coherent errors, syndrome extraction and the Robustness of Magic in stabiliser codes
AU - Enrico Bozzetto
AU - Jonte R. Hance
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.38554
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.38554
AB - Coherent errors leave stabiliser-code-encoded magic states in superpositions of syndrome sectors. We ask how much magic these coherent errors add, and whether syndrome extraction depletes logical magic. Using Robustness of Magic, we show that, for a unitary error U on a correctable region which supports no stabiliser, the encoded state has the same robustness as the logical state plus one copy of the Choi state of U , in every stabiliser code encoding. Syndrome extraction removes this copy, returning the logical robustness. The removed magic is positive for every non-Clifford error: adding a non-stabiliser state to any state multiplies one plus the robustness by a (tightly- bounded) factor above one. The magic capacity of two-qubit gates Clifford-equivalent to diagonal or single-qubit gates is equal to their Choi-state robustness. We give a linear-algebraic test for when a Clifford error makes syndrome extraction measure a logical operator, and give magic lifetimes of stored single-qubit magic states under Pauli noise. Choosing the plane of the stored state extends these lifetimes about 1.5x on rotated surface codes under low code-capacity depolarising noise. We identify states and channels in odd-prime dimension for which Wigner negativity and robustness show equal lifetimes.
ER -