Achievability of CSS codes performance limits over Pauli channels under separate ML decoding with bounded graphical complexity

Abstract

Capacity-approaching quantum error correction faces a fundamental tension: the required parity-check matrices need to become increasingly dense, while practical decoding and syndrome extraction favor sparse, bounded-degree structures. Reconciling these competing requirements remains an important open problem in quantum code design. We construct Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) code ensembles that approach the CSS rate over memoryless Pauli channels under maximum-likelihood decoding while retaining sparse, bounded-degree graphical representations. The construction separates parity-check density from graphical complexity: although capacity-approaching components may require dense parity-check matrices, they are represented by sparse concatenated factor graphs. We first study a construction combining low-density parity-check (LDPC) and low-density generator-matrix (LDGM) component codes and numerically analyze the average weight distributions of the resulting codes. Motivated by these results, we introduce a second construction based on concatenated LDPC and LDGM codes and generalized irregular repeat-accumulate (GIRA) codes. We derive bounds on the average weight distribution of the resulting sum ensemble and use the Miller-Burshtein framework to prove simultaneous reliability of the two CSS decoding components. Consequently, the proposed ensemble achieves rates arbitrarily close to the CSS hashing bound under separate bit- and phase-error correction, while maintaining bounded graphical complexity, thus providing a foundation for future iterative decoders and indirect syndrome-extraction architectures.