Anthony Balchin

Quantum computation is a notoriously difficult challenge, as one has to always compete with the environment in order to protect the quantum information within the system. The field of quantum error correction is aimed at surmounting the decoherence problem, and can be realised in two different approaches. One is the active approach, with measurement followed by the correction of errors that accumulate within the system. The other is a passive approach, aimed at engineering intrinsically robust systems for which the loss of quantum information is energetically disfavoured, we focus on this approach. Topologically ordered systems have been suggested as suitable passively-protected qubit manifolds, in which quantum information is shielded from a noisy environment by the topological features of the system and the long-range entanglement within the system.