Thermodynamic Interpretation of the Quantum Error Correcting Criterion

Shannon's fundamental coding theorems relate classical information theory to thermodynamics. More recent theoretical work has been successful in relating quantum information theory to thermodynamics. For example, Schumacher proved a quantum version of Shannon's 1948 classical noiseless coding theorem. In this note, we extend the connection between quantum information theory and thermodynamics to include quantum error correction. There is a standard mechanism for describing errors that may occur during the transmission, storage, and manipulation of quantum information. One can formulate a criterion of necessary and sufficient conditions for the errors to be detectable and correctable. We show that this criterion has a thermodynamical interpretation. PACS: 03.67; 05.30; 63.10