  We consider a two reservoir model of quantum error correction with a hot bath
causing errors in the qubits and a cold bath cooling the ancilla qubits to a
fiducial state. We consider error correction protocols both with and without
measurement of the ancilla state. The error correction acts as a kind of
refrigeration process to maintain the data qubits in a low entropy state by
periodically moving the entropy to the ancilla qubits and then to the cold
reservoir. We quantify the performance of the error correction as a function of
the reservoir temperatures and cooling rate by means of the fidelity and the
residual entropy of the data qubits. We also make a comparison with the
continuous quantum error correction model of Sarovar and Milburn [Phys. Rev. A
72 012306].
