arXiv subjects

Alessandro Bocci

Publications and source records attributed to Alessandro Bocci.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

StableShots: Online Shot Stopping for Quantum Circuit Execution

Quantum circuit execution estimates output distributions by repeated measurements, yet developers commonly choose a fixed shot budget before execution. This static choice is brittle: low budgets can under-sample the distribution, while high budgets waste measurements. In this paper, we present StableShots, a black-box online stopping rule for static quantum circuits. The method executes a fixed circuit in small batches, monitors the total-variation distance between cumulative empirical distributions, and stops after repeated evidence of local stability. We evaluate StableShots on 180 QSimBench traces spanning six circuit families, six sizes from 4 to 14 qubits, and five noisy IBM simulated backends. With validation-only calibration and 100 repeated backend-holdout splits, the selected configuration reaches TVD <= 0.05 on all held-out test evaluations with median 7,650 shots, whereas fixed-shot baselines either fail more often or spend substantially more shots.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

How Many Shots Are Enough for a Quantum Circuit?

Quantum algorithms require repeated circuit executions, known as shots, to estimate output distributions accurately. Determining the minimal number of shots needed to meet a target accuracy is crucial to reduce costs and resource usage, especially on today's noisy and expensive quantum hardware. In this paper, we address the shot optimisation problem in a black-box setting, where no assumptions are made about the structure of the quantum circuit or the noise model of the backend. We introduce IncrementalExecution, a novel online framework that dynamically determines when to stop executing shots based on the principle of point of diminishing returns: the point at which additional shots no longer significantly alter the empirical distribution of a fixed circuit. The framework supports customisable policies for shot management, enabling flexible trade-offs between execution cost and result fidelity within static execution scenarios. We assess our proposal through an extensive experimental evaluation spanning 33,750 framework configurations across 180 unique static quantum circuit-backend combinations, for a total of 7.3M independent experiments. Unlike prior work that relies on problem-specific knowledge or algorithm-dependent assumptions (e.g., variational or adaptive workflows), our approach is applicable to a large set of static circuits and immediately deployable on current quantum cloud platforms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Rethinking Services in the Quantum Age: The SOQ Paradigm

Quantum computing is rapidly progressing from theoretical promise to practical implementation, offering significant computational advantages for tasks in optimization, simulation, cryptography, and machine learning. However, its integration into real-world software systems remains constrained by hardware fragility, platform heterogeneity, and the absence of robust software engineering practices. This paper introduces Service-Oriented Quantum (SOQ), a novel paradigm that reimagines quantum software systems through the lens of classical service-oriented computing. Unlike prior approaches such as Quantum Service-Oriented Computing (QSOC), which treat quantum capabilities as auxiliary components within classical systems, SOQ positions quantum services as autonomous, composable, and interoperable entities. We define the foundational principles of SOQ, propose a layered technology stack to support its realization, and identify the key research and engineering challenges that must be addressed, including interoperability, hybridity, pricing models, service abstractions, and workforce development. This approach is of vital importance for the advancement of quantum technology because it enables the scalable, modular, and interoperable integration of quantum computing into real-world software systems independently and without relying on a dedicated classical environment to manage quantum processing.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2025

Quantum Executor: A Unified Interface for Quantum Computing

As quantum computing evolves from theoretical promise to practical deployment, the demand for robust, portable, and scalable tools for quantum software experimentation is growing. This paper introduces Quantum Executor, a backend-agnostic execution engine designed to orchestrate quantum experiments across heterogeneous platforms. Quantum Executor provides a declarative and modular interface that decouples experiment design from backend execution, enabling seamless interoperability and code reuse across diverse quantum and classical resources. Key features include support for asynchronous and distributed execution, customizable execution strategies and a unified API for managing quantum experiments. We illustrate its applicability through two life-like usage scenarios such as automated benchmarking and hybrid validation, discussing its capacity to streamline quantum development. We conclude by discussing current limitations and outlining a roadmap for future enhancements.

quant-ph↗