Explicit error-correction scheme and code distance for bosonic codes with rotational symmetry

Abstract: Bosonic codes with rotational symmetry are currently one of the best performing quantum error correcting codes. Little is known about error propagation and code distance for these rotation codes in contrast with qubit codes and Bosonic codes with translation symmetry. We use a general purpose error basis that is naturally suited to codes with rotation symmetry to compute how errors propagate through gates. This error basis allows us to give an explicit error detection, decoding, and correction scheme for any code with rotation symmetry. We also prove that codes with an $N$-fold rotation symmetry have a distance of $(d_n, d_\theta)=(N, \pi/N)$ with respect to number and rotation errors.