Error-mitigated initialization of surface codes with non-Pauli stabilizers

Quantum error correction represents a significant milestone in large-scale quantum computing, with the surface code being a prominent strategy due to its high error threshold and experimental feasibility. However, it is challenging to implement non-Clifford logical gates in a fault-tolerant way with low overhead, through the conventional magic-state distillation technique. Here, we enhance the performance of the conventional surface code by incorporating non-Pauli stabilizers and introduce two innovative initialization protocols. Our approach enhances the fidelity of the initialization of the non-Clifford logical state by avoiding unprotected operations before the encoding process. This improved fidelity of the initialization of non-Clifford logical states reduces the necessary number of logical qubits for precise state distillation, ultimately decreasing the overall resource overhead. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ability to entangle logical qubits in non-Pauli and Pauli bases via the lattice surgery technique. This integration enables the use of Pauli-based surface codes for computation while non-Pauli codes are employed for auxiliary qubit initialization, thus making them compatible with the conventional wisdom of logical Clifford operation based on the Pauli-based surface code.