Universal quantum computation with symmetric qubit clusters coupled to an environment

One of the most challenging problems for the realization of a scalable quantum computer is to design a physical device that keeps the error rate for each quantum processing operation low. These errors can originate from the accuracy of quantum manipulation, such as the sweeping of a gate voltage in solid state qubits or the duration of a laser pulse in optical schemes. Errors also result from decoherence, which is often regarded as more crucial in the sense that it is inherent to the quantum system, being fundamentally a consequence of the coupling to the external environment. Grouping small collections of qubits into clusters with symmetries may serve to protect parts of the calculation from decoherence. In this work, we use four-level cores with a straightforward generalization of discrete rotational symmetry, called omega-rotation invariance, to encode pairs of coupled qubits and universal two-qubit logical gates. We include quantum errors as a main source of decoherence, and show that symmetry makes logical operations particularly resilient to untimely anisotropic qubit rotations. We propose a scalable scheme for universal quantum computation where cores play the role of quantum-computational transistors, or quansistors for short. Initialization and readout are achieved by tunnel-coupling the quansistor to leads. The external leads are explicitly considered and are assumed to be the other main source of decoherence. We show that quansistors can be dynamically decoupled from the leads by tuning their internal parameters, giving them the versatility required to act as controllable quantum memory units. With this dynamical decoupling, logical operations within quansistors are also symmetry-protected from unbiased noise in their parameters. We identify technologies that could implement omega-rotation invariance. Many of our results can be generalized to higher-level omega-rotation-invariant systems, or adapted to clusters with other symmetries.