Quantum Gilbert-Varshamov bound through symplectic self-orthogonal codes

It is well known that quantum codes can be constructed through classical symplectic self-orthogonal codes. In this paper, we give a kind of Gilbert-Varshamov bound for symplectic self-orthogonal codes first and then obtain the Gilbert-Varshamov bound for quantum codes. The idea of obtaining the Gilbert-Varshamov bound for symplectic self-orthogonal codes follows from counting arguments.