Magic State Distillation: Towards a Universal Quantum Computer

A quantum computer has the potential to solve many difficult computational problems far more rapidly than any existing classical device. However, in any real device, there will be sources of decoherence and errors in control, so that some form of error correction is needed. One of the simplest and practically most important problems in error correction is the problem of magic state distillation. Here one assumes that one has already error-corrected a certain set of operations, called Clifford operations, and then one uses these operations to error correct some additional operations needed to build a universal quantum computer. I will explain this problem and then describe some recent advances, including both practical advances and theoretical advances which beat conjectured theoretical limits (joint work with J. Haah).​