Let me try to give you the answer in just the right amount of generality. A quantum code is just a short way to say a quantum error-correcting code. It is a special embedding of one vector space into another larger one that satisfies some additional properties. If we start with a Hilbert space $H$, then a code is a decomposition into $H = (A \otimes B) \oplus C$. The quantum information is encoded into system $A$. In the event that $B$ is trivial, then indeed this is just a subspace of $H$. When $B$ is nontrivial, we say call it a subsystem code. Let's specialize to the case of $n$ qubits, so that $H = (\mathbb{C}^2)^{\otimes n}$, and it is easiest to imagine that the dimensions of $A$, $B$, and $C$ are all powers of 2, though of course this discussion could be generalized.
Let $P$ be the orthogonal projector onto $A\otimes B$, and let $\mathcal{E}$ be an arbitrary quantum channel, i.e. a completely positive trace preserving linear map. We say that $\mathcal{E}$ is recoverable if there exists another quantum channel $\mathcal{R}$ such that for all states $\rho_A \otimes \rho_B$, we have
$$\mathcal{R}\circ\mathcal{E}(\rho_A \otimes \rho_B) = \rho_A \otimes \rho'_B,$$
where $\rho'_B$ is arbitrary. This says that for any state which is supported on $A\otimes B$ and is initially separable, we can reverse the effects of $\mathcal{E}$ up to a change on system $B$.
Fortunately, there are simpler equivalent conditions that one can check instead. For example, an equivalent condition can be stated in terms of the Kraus operators $E_j$ for the channel $\mathcal{E}$. The subsystem $A$ is correctable for $\mathcal{E}(\rho) = \sum_j E_j \rho E_j^\dagger$ if an only if for all $i,j$, there exists a $g^{ij}_B$ on subsystem $B$ such that
$$ P E_i^\dagger E_j P = 1\hspace{-3pt}\mathrm{l}_A \otimes g^{ij}_B.$$
You can interpret this condition as saying that no error process associated to the channel $\mathcal{E}$ can gain any information about subsystem $A$.
Consider error channels which consist of Kraus operators that, when expanded in the Pauli basis, only have support on at most $d$ of the $n$ qubits in our Hilbert space. If every such channel is correctable for subsystem $A$, then we say our code has distance $d$. The largest such $d$ is called the distance of the code. For the toric code, this is the linear size of the lattice.
This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-05 17:30 (UCT), posted by SE-user Steve Flammia