Steane code

The Steane code is a seven-qubit CSS stabilizer code encoding one logical qubit with distance three.

Write the Steane code basis as uniform quantum superpositions over a binary linear code $D$ and a disjoint coset $t+D$, where $D$ is the even-weight part of the length-seven Hamming code. For $Z(w)={⨂}_{j=1}^7{Z}_j^{w_j}$, diagonal Pauli Z gates cannot connect the two cosets. Within coset $t_a+D$, the overlap isIf $w\notin D^{\perp }$, translation by a word $x_0\in D$ with $w\cdot x_0=1$ negates this sum, so it vanishes. Since the dual code $D^{\perp }$ is the length-seven Hamming code of minimum Hamming distance three, every nonzero $w$ of Hamming weight one or two has vanishing overlap. Taking $u,v$ from $\{0,e_1,\dots ,e_7\}$ proves the displayed identity. The eight two-dimensional error images are orthogonal, so their projective measurement determines the error syndrome without revealing the logical state; applying the identified phase flip again recovers every code state. This proves nondegenerate quantum error-correcting code behaviour for the identity and all single-site phase flips, including their coherent linear span.