  A formulation for evaluating the performance of quantum error correcting
codes for a general error model is presented. In this formulation, the
correlation between errors is quantified by a Hamiltonian description of the
noise process. We classify correlated errors using the system-bath interaction:
local versus nonlocal and two-body versus many-body interactions. In
particular, we consider Calderbank-Shor-Steane codes and observe a better
performance in the presence of correlated errors depending on the timing of the
error recovery. We also find this timing to be an important factor in the
design of a coding system for achieving higher fidelities.
