Empirical Burst Tolerance of 4D Cubic Toric Codes Across Three Size Regimes
Abstract
We construct the 4D cubic toric code on a parameterized 4-torus T^4 = (Z/N0) x (Z/N1) x (Z/N2) x (Z/N3) with qubits on 2-cells, Z-stabilizers on 3-cells, and X-stabilizers on 1-cells, yielding [[6 * prod Ni, 6, min Ni*Nj]]. Three concrete sizes are benchmarked: [[96,6,4]] (cubic 2^4 torus), [[192,6,4]] (sides 2,2,2,4), and [[768,6,8]] (sides 2,4,4,4). Across 2,694 trials spanning three localized error families (weight-24 vertex bursts, weight-6 edge bursts, weight-{4,8,16} logical seeds) and three decoders (permissive GF(2) inversion, greedy minimum-syndrome, BP+OSD-CS-7 via the ldpc 2.3.9 package), we find: (1) all vertex and edge bursts at all three sizes are stabilizer-equivalent under the permissive decoder, with zero logical failures across 880 burst trials per decoder; (2) BP+OSD-CS-7 decodes every vertex burst to exact-zero residual at all three sizes (176/176 total) -- the decoder identifies the burst pattern itself as the minimum-weight correction; (3) logical seed errors are correctly classified into six distinct sectors, confirming the k=6 logical space is faithfully resolved. This empirically realizes the burst-protection consequence of the palindromic preservation theorem (Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.20040776) at three independent code sizes, and closes the decoder gap left open by greedy methods at higher weights. A side finding: the cubic 2^4 torus yields distance d=4, not d=8 as sometimes quoted for the [[96,6,*]] toric code on the 24-cell; reaching d=8 requires sides (2,4,4,4) and n=768 qubits. This refines the parameter claim without affecting the palindromic theorem itself. The bundle contains the source (torus_code_4d.py, burst_recheck_v2.py), the full per-burst log (burst_recheck_all_sizes.log), parsed numeric results (results.json), and reproducibility instructions. Total compute: about 78 seconds on a single x86 VPS core for all three sizes. Entry 1 - Identifier: 10.5281/zenodo.20040776 - Relation: is supplement to - Resource type: Publication / Preprint Entry 2 - Identifier: 10.5281/zenodo.18815664 - Relation: is part of - Resource type: Publication / Other Erratum (2026-07-29): The 2,694 trials reported here at zero logical failures are a floor, not a failure curve — the record tested only burst weights 6 and 24, both inside the protected region and roughly 7 qubits below the boundary, so the failure boundary was never located. It has since been located on the isotropic [[486,6,9]]: localized bursts stay clean to weight 30 (0/20,000) and first fail at weight 31 (2/20,000), against weight 13 for unstructured random support, giving 2.5× structural tolerance at equal resolution. The curve is also strongly non-monotone, with protected spikes at complete balls — failure rate 0.802 at w=143, 0/5,000 at w=144 and w=145, back to 0.293 at w=146 — so no single-number burst-tolerance figure is meaningful for this code. See 10.5281/zenodo.21684236.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture
Distributed systems and fault tolerance
Advanced Data Storage Technologies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 20 May 2026
- Document type
- Preprint