Embedding Stabilizer Codes and Leakage Correction in Multilevel Quantum Systems

Abstract

Leakage beyond the computational subspace is a major source of error in multilevel quantum hardware. We show that any \( [[n,k,d]] \) stabilizer code can be embedded isometrically into a single \(D\)-dimensional system while preserving its complete error-correcting structure. We further derive a necessary and sufficient condition for exact leakage correction, proving that leakage is correctable precisely when it does not distinguish between logical states. These results establish a unified framework for quantum error correction in multilevel quantum systems.