Quantum Error Correction/Detection and Dynamical Decoupling: Better Together or Apart?
Speaker
Prof. Daniel Lidar
Prof. Daniel Lidar, University of Southern California, co-founder of Quantum Elements
Prof. Daniel Lidar is the Viterbi Professor of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), where he holds joint appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chemistry, and Physics & Astronomy. He is Director of the USC Center for Quantum Information Science & Technology, Director of the USC-IBM Quantum Innovation Center, and Scientific Director of the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center. His research focuses on quantum error correction, quantum control, dynamical decoupling, open quantum systems, quantum algorithms, and fault-tolerant quantum computing. Prof. Lidar is a Fellow of the AAAS, APS, and IEEE, and a recipient of Guggenheim and Sloan Fellowships
Host
Katia Moskvitch
Communications director
Katia Moskvitch is the Director of Communications at Quantum Machines, where she leads the company’s global communications strategy, brand narrative, and external relations across media, analysts, partners, and the broader quantum technology ecosystem. She oversees strategic content development, thought leadership initiatives, and the company’s public positioning.
Katia is an award-winning science and technology journalist with more than 15 years of experience writing for Nature, BBC Future, New Scientist, Wired, Scientific American, and Quanta Magazine. Before joining Quantum Machines, she led editorial strategy and communications for several deep-tech and advanced research organizations, translating complex scientific innovation into clear narratives for global audiences.
Her journalistic work has spanned quantum computing, physics, space science, AI, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies, and her reporting has been featured in leading publications worldwide. Katia is also the author of Neutron Stars: The Quest to Understand the Zombies of the Cosmos, a nonfiction book blending science, history, and human relationships.
Description
Quantum error correction (QEC) and dynamical decoupling (DD) protect quantum information in complementary ways, but their combination requires careful co-design. This seminar presents a theoretical framework that identifies when a hybrid approach provides an advantage, together with two experiments on IBM transmon processors that validate the theory.
The theory derives closed-form expressions for the entanglement fidelities of competing protocols, along with a sharp criterion for hybrid advantage. The first experiment combines logical DD with an error-detecting code to produce entangled logical states with fidelities exceeding those of the corresponding unprotected physical states. The second implements a surface-code memory on heavy-hex hardware, where gap-aware DD yields basis-resolved improvements as the code is scaled from distance 3 to anisotropic distances (3,5) and (5,3).
Together, these results demonstrate that carefully integrating dynamical decoupling with quantum error correction can outperform either technique alone, providing new insights into the design of scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing systems.
