Qudit stabilizer codes, CFTs, and topological surfaces

Abstract

We study general maps from the space of rational conformal field theories (CFTs) with a fixed chiral algebra and associated Chern-Simons (CS) theories to the space of qudit stabilizer codes with a fixed generalized Pauli group. We consider certain natural constraints on such a map and show that the map can be described as a graph homomorphism from an orbifold graph, which captures the orbifold structure of CFTs, to a code graph, which captures the structure of self-dual stabilizer codes. By studying explicit examples, we show that this graph homomorphism cannot always be a graph embedding. However, we construct a physically motivated map from universal orbifold subgraphs of CFTs to operators in a generalized Pauli group. We show that this map results in a self-dual stabilizer code if and only if the surface operators in the bulk CS theories corresponding to the CFTs in question are self-dual. For CFTs admitting a stabilizer code description, we show that the full Abelianized generalized Pauli group can be obtained from twisted sectors of certain 0-form symmetries of the CFT. Finally, we connect our construction with SymTFTs, and we argue that many equivalences between codes that arise in our setup correspond to equivalence classes of bulk topological surfaces under fusion with invertible surfaces. Published by the American Physical Society 2024