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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Surface code stabilizer measurements for Rydberg atoms

Sven Jandura, Laura Pecorari, and Guido Pupillo*

  • *Contact author: pupillo@unistra.fr
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L022059 – Published 26 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/2jk3-wdfz

Abstract

We consider stabilizer measurements for surface codes with neutral atoms and identify gate protocols that minimize logical error rates in the presence of a fundamental error source—spontaneous emission from Rydberg states. We demonstrate that logical error rates are minimized by protocols that prevent the propagation of Rydberg leakage errors and not by protocols that minimize the physical two-qubit error rate. We provide laser-pulse-level gate protocols to counter these errors. These protocols significantly reduce the logical error rate for implementations of surface codes involving one or two species of atoms. Our work demonstrates the importance of optimizing quantum gates for logical errors in addition to gate fidelities and opens the way to the efficient realization of surface codes with neutral atoms.

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 8, L022059– Published 26 June, 2026
  • Received 13 June 2024
  • Revised 22 December 2025
  • Accepted 2 April 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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