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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Characterizing correlated noise with single-qubit operations

Balázs Gulácsi*, Joris Kattemölle, and Guido Burkard

  • *Contact author: balazs.gulacsi@uni-konstanz.de
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, L042067 – Published 26 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/k2lx-vfqp

Abstract

Spatially correlated noise poses a significant challenge to fault-tolerant quantum computation by breaking the assumption of independent errors. Existing methods such as cycle benchmarking and quantum process tomography can characterize noise correlations but require substantial resources. We propose straightforward and efficient techniques to detect and quantify these correlations by leveraging collective phenomena arising from environmental correlations in a qubit register. In these techniques, single-qubit state preparations, single-qubit gates, and single-qubit measurements, combined with classical postprocessing, suffice to uncover correlated relaxation and dephasing. Specifically, we use that correlated relaxation is connected to the superradiance effect, which we show to be accessible by single-qubit measurements. Analogously, the established parity oscillation protocol can be refined to quantify correlated dephasing without requiring the preparation of complex and entangled states.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, L042067– Published 26 December, 2025
  • Received 12 February 2025
  • Accepted 3 December 2025
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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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