Thresholds for Topological Codes in the Presence of Loss

Many proposals for quantum information processing are subject to detectable loss errors. In this Letter, we show that topological error correcting codes, which protect against computational errors, are also extremely robust against losses. We present analytical results showing that the maximum tolerable loss rate is 50%, which is determined by the square-lattice bond percolation threshold. This saturates the bound set by the no-cloning theorem. Our numerical results support this and show a graceful trade-off between tolerable thresholds for computational and loss errors.