  Quantum error correction is a key challenge for the development of practical
quantum computers, a direction in which significant experimental progress has
been made in recent years. In solid-state qubits, one of the leading
information loss mechanisms is dephasing, usually modelled by phase flip
errors. Here, we introduce quasistatic phase damping, a more subtle error model
which describes the effect of Larmor frequency fluctuations due to 1/f noise.
We show how this model is different from a simple phase flip error model, in
terms of multi-cycle error correction. Considering the surface code, we provide
numerical evidence for an error threshold, in the presence of quasistatic phase
damping and readout errors. We discuss the implications of our results for spin
qubits and superconducting qubits.
