Suppressing measurement noise in logical qubits through measurement scheduling
Phys. Rev. A 113, 012601 – Published 5 January, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rs1b-mnyc
Abstract
Quantum error correction is essential for reliable quantum computation, where surface codes demonstrate high fault-tolerant thresholds and hardware efficiency. However, noise in single-shot measurements limits logical readout fidelity, forming a critical bottleneck for fault-tolerant quantum computation. We propose a dynamic measurement scheduling protocol that suppresses logical readout errors by adaptively redistributing measurement tasks on data qubits from error-prone to stable nodes. The protocol balances gate errors and measurement noise while ensuring compatibility with the error correction cycle by operating after the stabilizer measurements are complete, using shallow entangled circuits. When addressing realistic scenarios where temporal constraints are governed by decoherence limits and error-correction requirements, we implement reinforcement learning to achieve adaptive measurement scheduling. Numerical simulations show that logical error rates can be reduced by up to 34.98% for code distances ranging from 3 to 11, with enhanced robustness in measurement-noise-dominated systems. Our protocol offers a versatile, hardware-efficient solution for high-fidelity quantum error correction, advancing large-scale quantum computing.
