Exact logical error rates for magic state cultivation

Abstract:We compute exactly the acceptance and logical error rates for the distance $d=3$ and $d=5$ magic state cultivation circuits from Clifft [arXiv:2604.27058] and SOFT [arXiv:2512.23037] using Pauli propagation and binary tensor contraction. Actual $T$ gates are studied, not the $S$-gate proxy used for sampling. The calculation includes every fault order at several circuit-level noise strengths ($p$). We provide a series expansion form to the logical error rates, through order $(p/(1-p))^{10}$. The analytical results recover the numerical values from Clifft and SOFT at both $d=3$ and $d=5$ to within their sampling uncertainty. Then, we show that the $d=3$ and $d=5$ circuits actually have fault distances of $d_{\text{fault}}=2$ and $d_{\text{fault}}=3$ respectively, explaining the similar distance degrading effects from the companion code of [Quantum 10, 2134 (2026)].

arXiv:2609.18922 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2609.18922v1 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.18922 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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