Publication Details

An Automata-Based Framework for Verification and Bug Hunting in Quantum Circuits

CHEN Yu-Fang, CHUNG Kai-Min, LENGÁL Ondřej, LIN Jyun-ao, TSAI Wei-lun and YEN Di-de. An Automata-Based Framework for Verification and Bug Hunting in Quantum Circuits. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, vol. 7, no. 6, 2023, pp. 1218-1243. ISSN 2475-1421. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3591270
Czech title
Rámec pro verifikaci a hledání chyb v kvantových obvodech
Type
journal article
Language
english
Authors
Chen Yu-Fang (ASIN)
Chung Kai-Min (ASIN)
Lengál Ondřej, Ing., Ph.D. (DITS FIT BUT)
Lin Jyun-ao (ASIN)
Tsai Wei-lun (ASIN)
Yen Di-de (MPI-SWS)
URL
Keywords

quantum circuit, verification, tree automata, bug hunting

Abstract

We introduce a new paradigm for analysing and finding bugs in quantum circuits. In our approach, the problem is given by a triple {P} C {Q} and the question is whether, given a set of quantum states P on the input of a circuit C, the set of quantum states on the output is equal to (or included in) a set Q. While this is not suitable to specify, e.g., functional correctness of a quantum circuit, it is sufficient to detect many bugs in quantum circuits. We propose a technique based on tree automata to compactly represent sets of quantum states and develop transformers to implement the semantics of quantum gates over this representation. Our technique computes with an algebraic representation of quantum states, avoiding the inaccuracy of working with floating-point numbers. We implemented the proposed approach in a prototype tool and evaluated its performance against various benchmarks from the literature. The evaluation shows that our approach is quite scalable, e.g., we managed to verify a large circuit with 40 qubits and 141,527 gates, or catch bugs injected into a circuit with 320 qubits and 1,758 gates, where all tools we compared with failed. In addition, our work establishes a connection between quantum program verification and automata, opening new possibilities to exploit the richness of automata theory and automata-based verification in the world of quantum computing.

Published
2023
Pages
1218-1243
Journal
Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, vol. 7, no. 6, ISSN 2475-1421
Book
Proceedings of PLDI'23
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
DOI
10.1145/3591270
UT WoS
001005701900052
EID Scopus
2-s2.0-85161987319
BibTeX 
@ARTICLE{FITPUB13018,
   author = "Yu-Fang Chen and Kai-Min Chung and Ond\v{r}ej Leng\'{a}l and Jyun-ao Lin and Wei-lun Tsai and Di-de Yen",
   title = "An Automata-Based Framework for Verification and Bug Hunting in Quantum Circuits",
   pages = "1218--1243",
   booktitle = "Proceedings of PLDI'23",
   journal = "Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages",
   volume = 7,
   number = 6,
   year = 2023,
   ISSN = "2475-1421",
   doi = "10.1145/3591270",
   language = "english",
   url = "https://www.fit.vut.cz/research/publication/13018"
}
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