Quantum Convolutional Codes Derived from Generalized Reed-Solomon Codes

Convolutional stabilizer codes promise to make quantum communication more reliable with attractive online encoding and decoding algorithms. This paper introduces a new approach to convolutional stabilizer codes based on direct limit constructions. A quantum Singleton bound for pure convolutional stabilizer codes is given. A familiy of quantum convolutional codes is derived from generalized Reed-Solomon codes. These codes are shown to be optimal with respect to the (quantum) Singleton bound.