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[[95,21,5]] d ≤
n
95
k
21
d
5
kd²/n
5.52632
w
7
X/Z
1
g
0.0027
r
6.7082
layers
2
swaps
537

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Distance

X/Z asymmetry 1 · d_X ≤ 5, d_Z ≤ 5 · w_X = 7, w_Z = 7 (max(d_X,d_Z)/min(d_X,d_Z); each side carries its own earned tier: = certified exact, ≤ witness upper bound)
d_X 5 · witness weight 5 (claimed upper_bound)
witness found by @vprusso · research/kit/surrogate.lightest_logical · found at 2000 trials · survived 2000 trials · 2026-11-03
witness operator (support, 5 qubits)
[10, 21, 33, 37, 40]
d_Z 5 · witness weight 5 (claimed upper_bound)
witness found by @vprusso · research/kit/surrogate.lightest_logical · found at 2000 trials · survived 2000 trials · 2026-11-03
witness operator (support, 5 qubits)
[6, 19, 31, 33, 46]
certificate none yet · distance stands as a self-certified upper bound (d ≤)

Diagnostics

computed by the verifier from the parity checks, the layout, and the stored witnesses; shown as evidence, not used for ranking
girth H_X 6 · H_Z 6 (shortest cycle of each side’s Tanner graph; longer is friendlier to belief propagation)
check weights H_X 7 · H_Z 7
qubit degrees H_X 1–4 (mean 2.726) · H_Z 1–4 (mean 2.726)
trapping sets H_X (1,1)×6 (2,1)×11 (3,1)×26 (smallest syndrome weight at each size, connected sets of up to 3 qubits)
full (size, syndrome weight): count census for H_X
(1,1): 6 (1,2): 34 (1,3): 35 (1,4): 20 (2,1): 11 (2,2): 62 (2,3): 174 (2,4): 271 (2,5): 187 (2,6): 72 (3,1): 26 (3,2): 132 (3,3): 654 (3,4): 1744 (3,5): 2897 (3,6): 2621 (3,7): 1315 (3,8): 458 (3,9): 141 (3,10): 27
trapping sets H_Z (1,1)×8 (2,1)×9 (3,1)×24 (smallest syndrome weight at each size, connected sets of up to 3 qubits)
full (size, syndrome weight): count census for H_Z
(1,1): 8 (1,2): 30 (1,3): 37 (1,4): 20 (2,1): 9 (2,2): 52 (2,3): 183 (2,4): 291 (2,5): 146 (2,6): 96 (3,1): 24 (3,2): 140 (3,3): 651 (3,4): 1777 (3,5): 2717 (3,6): 2786 (3,7): 1181 (3,8): 589 (3,9): 114 (3,10): 64
witness diameter X 6.0828 · Z 7.0711 (Euclidean support diameter of the stored distance witnesses in the layout; an upper bound on the exhibited logicals’ spread, not a minimum over all logicals)

Verified 2D layout

as measured by the verifier: every check drawn over the submitted coordinates; the interaction radius is the longest dashed pair
r = 6.708
X checkZ checkqubit site (49)2 qubits stacked (2 layers)dashed: the pair setting the interaction radiushover a check to isolate its qubits; click to pin — repeated clicks cycle through overlapping checks; click empty space to release
routing cost 537 nearest-neighbor SWAPs per round in total, at most 13 for one check (heuristic: MST lower bound on the layout, with one lattice step = the minimum qubit spacing 1; not a rank)

Construction & provenance

authors @vprusso
provenance submitted through the challenge
novelty novelty not audited
construction Priced construction calculus E-PUNCTURE of codes/96-20-6.json ([[96,20,6]], max check weight 7; a weight-7 generalized bicycle code contributed by Mathys Rennela): remove qubit 44 (0-based index in the parent file) together with every check touching it, and relabel the surviving qubits in increasing order of their parent indices. Consumer: github.com/unitaryfoundation/code-calculus @ 1b9a942, machine/priced_calculus.py.
model Claude Claude Fable 5.1 (claimed, not verified)
date 2026-11-04
notes Single-step priced-calculus E-PUNCTURE child of board entry 96-20-6. verify/validate_candidate.py found no board entry sharing this code's fingerprint or Weisfeiler-Leman signature, local-Hadamard images included.
family generalized bicycle (a tag, not a ranking)
locality 2D-local bilayer (computed from the layout)
weight class weight ≤ 8 (computed)

How this code was found

the research note submitted with this code · raw markdown · all notes

[[95,21,5]] priced calculus E-PUNCTURE of codes/96-20-6.json

Direction & hypothesis

2D-local bilayer weight-8 CSS cell, through the layout inherited from the parent. The priced construction calculus was applied one move deep to every CSS entry on the board, and this code is the E-PUNCTURE of codes/96-20-6.json ([[96,20,6]], max check weight 7; a weight-7 generalized bicycle code contributed by Mathys Rennela). Puncturing qubit 44, which removes it together with every check touching it, raises k from 20 to 21 and lowers the witnessed distance bound from 6 to 5 while dropping one qubit. Max check weight stays 7. The layout is the parent's with the punctured qubit removed; the verifier re-measured its radius and layer count.

What was searched

Every C-DELETE-CHECK, E-PEEL, and E-PUNCTURE move on each of the 2,783 CSS board entries as of 2026-11-02, 1,684,787 moves in all, with the consumer at github.com/unitaryfoundation/code-calculus @ 1b9a942. Children with a bare qubit, a disconnected Tanner graph, a Weisfeiler-Leman signature equal to a board entry or to an earlier child, or parameters already dominated inside the parent's cell were dropped before any search, leaving 334,191 distinct children. Children with n <= 60 and an inherited distance bound of at least 2, and children with 61 <= n <= 100 and a bound of at least 5, were screened with research/kit/surrogate.lightest_logical at 2,000 RIS trials per side; the survivors the kit's novelty pre-check called board-advancing were staged with research/kit/submit.py and gated with verify/validate_candidate.py, one representative per distinct (n, k, d, max weight, locality) point. This code is that representative for [[95,21,5]] at max check weight 7. The thirteen points audited first went to the board on 2026-11-04 (PRs #4588 to #4600); this one is from the remainder, re-checked against the board of 2026-11-04 with the gate's structural, deduplication, and novelty stages before the ladder below was run. The screen distance is a witness-backed upper bound; the rungs below are the independent confirmation runs on the staged file.

Evidence trail

Confirmation ladder for the submitted code, each rung a fresh seed unless marked otherwise, reading the lightest logical found:

| budget (trials/side) | lightest logical | | ---: | ---: | | 2,000 (staging screen, seeds 1 and 2) | 5 | | 1,000,000 (seed 101) | 5 | | 1,000,000 (seed 102) | 5 | | 10,000,000 (seed 103) | 5 |

4 fresh-seed rung(s) agree at the best bound, the deepest of them at 10,000,000 trials per side. The submitted witness reproduces it: X: d <= 5 (upper_bound), Z: d <= 5 (upper_bound).

Dead ends

None recorded for this candidate.

Tools

Model: Claude Fable 5.1 (Claude Code). Repo tooling: research/kit/coordination.py, research/kit/submit.py, research/kit/surrogate.py, research/audits/leader_audit.py. The local verdict is verify/validate_candidate.py; the bundle was assembled by research/kit/promote.py.

Reproduction

Load codes/96-20-6.json, remove qubit 44 (0-based index in that file) together with every X and Z check touching it, and relabel the surviving qubits in increasing order of their parent indices; in github.com/unitaryfoundation/code-calculus @ 1b9a942 this is apply_operation(state, {'op': 'E-PUNCTURE', 'qubit': 44}). Then run research/audits/leader_audit.py ladder on the result with --ladder 1000000:101,102 10000000:103 to reproduce the confirmation rungs; the witnesses in the entry are the ones those runs validated.

Parity checks

X-checks 37 (max weight 7) · Z-checks 37 (max weight 7)
H_X (37 checks, sparse supports)
[0, 15, 28, 47, 53, 55, 59] [1, 22, 35, 47, 48, 58, 66] [2, 26, 38, 47, 49, 56, 65] [3, 4, 29, 50, 64, 68, 73] [4, 13, 30, 48, 51, 65, 74] [3, 5, 41, 49, 52, 66, 70] [6, 33, 42, 48, 49, 53, 63] [7, 8, 36, 50, 54, 72, 80] [8, 20, 37, 49, 51, 55, 81] [7, 9, 44, 52, 53, 56, 74] [10, 11, 39, 50, 57, 69, 79] [11, 24, 40, 51, 53, 58, 70] [10, 12, 45, 48, 52, 59, 81] [5, 13, 14, 60, 78, 82, 86] [0, 14, 41, 54, 61, 79, 87] [13, 15, 16, 57, 62, 80, 84] [14, 16, 29, 56, 58, 63, 81] [17, 18, 43, 54, 57, 64, 77] [17, 19, 46, 51, 56, 59, 66] [9, 20, 21, 60, 67, 85, 90] [1, 21, 44, 57, 61, 68, 91] [20, 22, 23, 62, 64, 69, 87] [21, 23, 36, 59, 63, 65, 70] [12, 24, 25, 60, 71, 83, 89] [2, 25, 45, 61, 64, 72, 84] [24, 26, 27, 54, 62, 73, 91] [25, 27, 39, 55, 63, 66, 74] [3, 16, 28, 67, 75, 89, 93] [0, 29, 30, 71, 76, 90, 92] [5, 28, 30, 69, 72, 77, 91] [19, 31, 32, 67, 71, 78, 88] [6, 32, 46, 62, 68, 72, 79] [31, 33, 34, 61, 69, 73, 80] [32, 34, 43, 47, 70, 74, 81] [7, 23, 35, 71, 75, 82, 94] [1, 36, 37, 76, 78, 83, 93] [4, 15, 41, 83, 85, 88, 94]
H_Z (37 checks, sparse supports)
[0, 1, 2, 34, 47, 61, 76] [1, 4, 6, 12, 48, 68, 83] [2, 5, 6, 8, 49, 72, 86] [4, 8, 11, 19, 50, 51, 88] [5, 9, 12, 18, 52, 60, 77] [0, 6, 9, 11, 53, 79, 90] [7, 14, 17, 26, 54, 56, 82] [0, 8, 18, 27, 54, 55, 92] [2, 9, 16, 19, 56, 67, 84] [10, 15, 17, 21, 57, 59, 85] [1, 11, 16, 18, 57, 58, 93] [0, 12, 19, 23, 59, 71, 87] [13, 20, 24, 46, 51, 60, 62] [14, 21, 25, 33, 60, 61, 63] [15, 22, 26, 32, 47, 62, 88] [6, 16, 23, 27, 62, 63, 75] [3, 17, 22, 25, 64, 66, 89] [2, 4, 18, 23, 64, 65, 94] [1, 5, 19, 27, 66, 78, 91] [20, 28, 31, 39, 55, 67, 69] [3, 21, 32, 40, 67, 68, 70] [10, 22, 30, 33, 48, 69, 92] [5, 11, 23, 34, 69, 70, 82] [24, 29, 31, 35, 58, 71, 73] [7, 25, 30, 32, 71, 72, 74] [3, 26, 33, 37, 49, 73, 93] [4, 9, 27, 34, 73, 74, 85] [28, 35, 38, 43, 47, 75, 77] [29, 36, 39, 42, 50, 63, 76] [17, 30, 37, 40, 51, 76, 77] [13, 31, 36, 38, 65, 78, 80] [10, 14, 32, 37, 78, 79, 81] [7, 15, 33, 40, 53, 80, 94] [8, 12, 16, 34, 80, 81, 89] [13, 35, 42, 45, 48, 82, 84] [24, 36, 41, 43, 54, 70, 83] [13, 39, 43, 44, 57, 74, 86]
Code ID 95-21-5 · download JSON · raw on GitHub