QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

We analyze the robustness of a quantum memory based on Majorana modes in a Kitaev chain. We identify the optimal recovery operation acting on the memory in the presence of perturbations and evaluate its fidelity in different scenarios. We show that for time-dependent Hamiltonian perturbations that preserve the topological features, the memory is robust even if the perturbation contains frequencies that lie well above the gap. We identify the condition that is responsible for this feature. At the same time we find that the memory is unstable with respect to particle losses.