Energetic Costs of Subspace Quantum Error Correction

Abstract

Quantum error correction acts as an entropy pump, transferring noise-induced uncertainty from a protected quantum system into syndrome information stored in an auxiliary memory. Repeated operation requires this memory to be cleared which unavoidably contributes to the energetic cost of error correction. Here, we characterise this contribution for subspace quantum error-correcting codes and identify how it depends on the joint structure of the code, the noise, and the representation of the retained syndrome information. Starting from the Knill-Laflamme conditions, we construct an effective syndrome state whose von Neumann entropy sets a lower bound on the ideal work required to maintain a reusable syndrome register. Projective syndrome readout generally generates additional entropy, and we quantify the resulting gap through measurement inefficiency. We then specialise to stabiliser codes under independent local Pauli noise and analyse two classical levels of syndrome representation. At the level of abstract error labels, degeneracies among single-qubit errors reduce the leading-order entropy of processed recovery labels. At the parity-check level, lower-weight checks reduce the marginal entropy generated by individual measurement outcomes in the low-noise regime. We identify the additional burden associated with retaining and separately erasing these outcomes as a bit-level inefficiency, and illustrate both costs for the five-qubit, Steane, generalised Shor, and rotated surface codes. Our results establish a hierarchy of syndrome-memory energetic costs and identify the code, noise, and measurement structures that control the ideal thermodynamic burden of subspace quantum error correction.