1. QWIRE: a core language for quantum circuits
- Author
-
Robert Rand, Jennifer Paykin, and Steve Zdancewic
- Subjects
010302 applied physics ,Quantum programming ,Theoretical computer science ,Programming language ,Interface (Java) ,Computer science ,Model of computation ,020207 software engineering ,0102 computer and information sciences ,02 engineering and technology ,computer.software_genre ,01 natural sciences ,Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design ,Operational semantics ,Denotational semantics ,010201 computation theory & mathematics ,0103 physical sciences ,0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering ,computer ,Host (network) ,Quantum ,Software ,computer.programming_language ,Quantum computer - Abstract
This paper introduces QWIRE (``choir''), a language for defining quantum circuits and an interface for manipulating them inside of an arbitrary classical host language. QWIRE is minimal---it contains only a few primitives---and sound with respect to the physical properties entailed by quantum mechanics. At the same time, QWIRE is expressive and highly modular due to its relationship with the host language, mirroring the QRAM model of computation that places a quantum computer (controlled by circuits) alongside a classical computer (controlled by the host language). We present QWIRE along with its type system and operational semantics, which we prove is safe and strongly normalizing whenever the host language is. We give circuits a denotational semantics in terms of density matrices. Throughout, we investigate examples that demonstrate the expressive power of QWIRE, including extensions to the host language that (1) expose a general analysis framework for circuits, and (2) provide dependent types.
- Published
- 2017