Approximate Error Correction for Quantum Simulations of SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theories

Abstract

We present a protocol for actively suppressing Gauss law violations in quantum simulations of SU(2) lattice gauge theory. Mid-circuit measurements extract a syndrome $(J,M,N)$ characterising the gauge-violation sector at each vertex by resolving both the total angular momentum and the magnetic quantum numbers of the violation through a group quantum Fourier transform. A syndrome-conditional recovery operation maps the state back to the gauge-invariant subspace, and the procedure is iterated as a sweep over vertices in a process we call gauge cooling. We prove that every single-qubit Pauli error at a coordination-four vertex with four spin-$1/2$ edges is detected by the gauge syndrome, and we show that the Knill--Laflamme conditions fail for syndrome-based recovery alone whenever the singlet multiplicity exceeds one. The residual physical-subspace errors carry a structured Pauli decomposition with vanishing $Y$ component, which suggests compatibility with concatenation by a CSS stabilizer code. We demonstrate the protocol on a single-plaquette simulation of the Kogut--Susskind Hamiltonian truncated to the spin-$1/2$ representation under depolarising and amplitude damping noise, and we observe that gauge cooling restores approximate gauge invariance and improves fidelity at noise rates representative of current superconducting hardware.