Purifying Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states using degenerate quantum codes

Abstract

Degenerate quantum codes are codes that do not reveal the complete error syndrome. Their ability to conceal the complete error syndrome makes them powerful resources in certain quantum-information processing tasks. In particular, the most error-tolerant way to purify depolarized Bell states using one-way communication known to date involves degenerate quantum codes. Here we study three closely related purification schemes for depolarized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states shared among m≥3 players by means of degenerate quantum codes and one-way classical communications. We find that our schemes tolerate more noise than all other one-way schemes known to date, further demonstrating the effectiveness of degenerate quantum codes in quantum-information processing. © 2008 The American Physical Society.