A short and efficient error correcting code for polarization coded photonic qubits in a dissipative channel

We propose a short and efficient non-degenerate quantum error correcting code that is adapted for qubits encoded on two orthogonal, single-photon states (e.g., horizontally and vertically polarized) subject to a dissipative channel. The proposed code draws its strength from the fact that it is adapted to the physical characteristics of the information-carrying basis states under the action of the channel. The code combines different energy manifolds and consists of only 3 spatio-temporal modes and on average 2 photons per code word. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.