Comparative study of decoding the surface code using simulated annealing under depolarizing noise

Abstract: We explored decoding methods for the surface code under depolarizing noise by mapping the problem into the Ising model optimization. We consider two kinds of mapping with and without a soft constraint and also various optimization solvers, including simulated annealing implemented on a CPU, "Fujitsu Digital Annealer" (DA), a hardware architecture specialized for the Ising problems, and CPLEX, an exact integer programming solver. We find that the proposed Ising-based decoding approaches provide higher accuracy compared to the minimum-weight perfect matching (MWPM) algorithm for depolarizing noise and comparable to minimum distance decoding using CPLEX. While decoding time is longer than MWPM when we compare it with a single core CPU, our method is amenable to parallelization and easy to implement on dedicated hardware, suggesting potential future speedups. Regarding the mapping methods to the Ising model with and without a soft constraint, the SA decoder yielded higher accuracy without a soft constraint. In contrast, the DA decoder shows less difference between the two mapping methods, which indicates that DA can find a better solution with smaller number of iterations even under the soft constraint. Our results are important for devising efficient and fast decoders feasible with quantum computer control devices.