Stabilizing Non-Abelian Topological Order Against Heralded Noise via Local Lindbladian Dynamics

An important open question for the current generation of highly controllable quantum devices is understanding which phases can be realized as stable steady states under local quantum dynamics. In this work, we show how robust steady-state phases with both Abelian and non-Abelian mixed-state topological order can be stabilized, in two spatial dimensions, against generic “heralded” noise using active dynamics that incorporate measurement and feedback, modeled as a Lindblad master equation. These topologically ordered steady states are two-way connected to pure topologically ordered ground states using local quantum channels, and preserve quantum information for a time that is exponentially large in the system size. Specifically, we present explicit constructions of families of local Lindbladians for both Abelian (<a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:msub><a:mrow><a:mi mathvariant="double-struck">Z</a:mi></a:mrow><a:mn>2</a:mn></a:msub></a:math>) and non-Abelian (<d:math xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><d:msub><d:mi>D</d:mi><d:mn>4</d:mn></d:msub></d:math>) topological order whose steady states host mixed-state topological order when the noise is below a threshold strength. As the noise strength is increased, these models exhibit first-order transitions to intermediate mixed-state phases where they encode robust classical memories, followed by (first-order) transitions to a trivial steady state at high noise rates. When the noise is imperfectly heralded, steady-state order disappears but our active dynamics significantly enhances the lifetime of the encoded logical information. To carry out the numerical simulations for the non-Abelian <f:math xmlns:f="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><f:msub><f:mi>D</f:mi><f:mn>4</f:mn></f:msub></f:math> case, we introduce a generalized stabilizer tableau formalism that permits efficient simulation of the non-Abelian Lindbladian dynamics.