We present a construction for quantum error correcting codes. The basic ingredients are a graph and a finite Abelian group, from which the code can explicitly be obtained. We prove necessary and sufficient conditions for the graph such that the resulting code corrects a certain number of errors. This allows a simple verification of the one-error correcting property of codes of length 5 in any dimension. As examples, we construct a large class of maximum distance separable codes, i.e. codes saturating the Singleton bound, as well as a code of length 10 detecting three errors.

• Received 21 December 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.65.012308