Efficient decoding of topological color codes

Color codes are a class of topological quantum codes with a high error threshold and a large set of transversal encoded gates and are thus suitable for fault-tolerant quantum computation in two-dimensional architectures. Recently, computationally efficient decoders for the color codes were proposed. We describe an alternate efficient iterative decoder for topological color codes and apply it to the color code on the hexagonal lattice embedded on a torus. In numerical simulations, we find an error threshold of 7.8% for independent dephasing and spin-flip errors.