arXiv subjects

Lev S. Bishop

Publications and source records attributed to Lev S. Bishop.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Concatenating Algebraic Codes over High-Rate Quantum LDPC Codes

Different quantum error correction schemes trade off overhead, error suppression, and hardware connectivity. Code concatenation can relax these tradeoffs by using an outer code whose non-local connectivity is supplied by logical operations of an inner code rather than directly by hardware. Prior works showed that this can reduce memory overhead for local low-rate inner codes such as the surface code. Here, we study concatenation over non-local, high-rate inner codes. Such inner codes experience correlated errors among the many logical qubits in a single codeblock. We handle this by treating each block as a single logical Galois qudit, enabling concatenation with algebraic outer codes with excellent parameters and, crucially, list decoders. In particular, we consider a memory system formed by concatenating quantum Reed-Solomon outer codes over the gross code. For fault-tolerant syndrome extraction, we develop a Galois qudit Shor scheme using "time-like" Reed-Solomon protection against measurement errors. Interestingly, a lightweight fault tolerance scheme, that would fail for qubits, works well for large-alphabet qudits, suggesting a very different theory of fault tolerance for such qudits. The whole protocol is optimised via improved bicycle instruction logical error rates, novel compilation strategies, and recent decoder post-selection rules. At uniform $10^{-3}$ physical noise, the concatenated gross code reaches the teraquop regime, which it previously could not access, with a lower space overhead than the $288$-qubit two-gross code, while offering several advantages from the engineering standpoint. Beyond our main case study, we believe the core ideas of Galois qudits, quantum Reed-Solomon outer codes, and list decoding, will prove generically powerful and highly transferable ideas across high-rate quantum architectures.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

GULPS: Two-Qubit Gate Synthesis via Linear Programming for Heterogeneous Instruction Sets

Modern quantum hardware exposes heterogeneous two-qubit instruction sets through fractional, continuously parameterized, and per-pair native gates, but synthesis remains largely framed around CNOT and a small catalog of closed-form rules. We present \textbf{GULPS} (Global Unitary Linear Programming Synthesis), a two-qubit compiler that partitions synthesis into depth-$2$ segments and uses a linear program over quantum Littlewood--Richardson reachability inequalities to plant the intermediate invariants between them. Each segment becomes an independent low-dimensional least-squares fit, solved by a Gauss--Newton/Levenberg--Marquardt routine. On Haar-random two-qubit targets, GULPS is more than $500{\times}$ faster than the general-purpose synthesizers BQSKit and NuOp at strictly lower circuit cost. Against Qiskit's specialized \texttt{XXDecomposer} on $XX$-family ISAs, GULPS produces identical output circuits $3.9$--$9.2{\times}$ faster, compounding to $7$--$19{\times}$ on full-circuit transpilation. All decompositions reach the double-precision unitary-infidelity floor. As a byproduct, the continuous formulation yields a Haar-averaged lower bound on expected circuit cost, against which discrete calibration choices can be benchmarked. GULPS is distributed on PyPI and registers as a Qiskit translation-stage plugin.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Flag Proxy Networks: Tackling the Architectural, Scheduling, and Decoding Obstacles of Quantum LDPC codes

Quantum error correction is necessary for achieving exponential speedups on important applications. The planar surface code has remained the most studied error-correcting code for the last two decades because of its relative simplicity. However, encoding a singular logical qubit with the planar surface code requires physical qubits quadratic in the code distance~($d$), making it space-inefficient for the large-distance codes necessary for promising applications. Thus, {\em Quantum Low-Density Parity-Check (QLDPC)} have emerged as an alternative to the planar surface code but require a higher degree of connectivity. Furthermore, the problems of fault-tolerant syndrome extraction and decoding are understudied for these codes and also remain obstacles to their usage. In this paper, we consider two under-studied families of QLDPC codes: hyperbolic surface codes and hyperbolic color codes. We tackle the three challenges mentioned above as follows. {\em First}, we propose {\em Flag-Proxy Networks (FPNs)}, a generalizable architecture for quantum codes that achieves low connectivity through flag and proxy qubits. {\em Second}, we propose a {\em greedy syndrome extraction scheduling} algorithm for general quantum codes and further use this algorithm for fault-tolerant syndrome extraction on FPNs. {\em Third}, we present two decoders that leverage flag measurements to decode the hyperbolic codes accurately. Our work finds that degree-4 FPNs of the hyperbolic surface and color codes are respectively $2.9\times$ and $5.5\times$ more space-efficient than the $d = 5$ planar surface code, and become even more space-efficient when considering higher distances. The hyperbolic codes also have error rates comparable to their planar counterparts.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Quantum computing with Qiskit

We describe Qiskit, a software development kit for quantum information science. We discuss the key design decisions that have shaped its development, and examine the software architecture and its core components. We demonstrate an end-to-end workflow for solving a problem in condensed matter physics on a quantum computer that serves to highlight some of Qiskit's capabilities, for example the representation and optimization of circuits at various abstraction levels, its scalability and retargetability to new gates, and the use of quantum-classical computations via dynamic circuits. Lastly, we discuss some of the ecosystem of tools and plugins that extend Qiskit for various tasks, and the future ahead.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Defining Standard Strategies for Quantum Benchmarks

As quantum computers grow in size and scope, a question of great importance is how best to benchmark performance. Here we define a set of characteristics that any benchmark should follow -- randomized, well-defined, holistic, device independent -- and make a distinction between benchmarks and diagnostics. We use Quantum Volume (QV) [1] as an example case for clear rules in benchmarking, illustrating the implications for using different success statistics, as in Ref. [2]. We discuss the issue of benchmark optimizations, detail when those optimizations are appropriate, and how they should be reported. Reporting the use of quantum error mitigation techniques is especially critical for interpreting benchmarking results, as their ability to yield highly accurate observables comes with exponential overhead, which is often omitted in performance evaluations. Finally, we use application-oriented and mirror benchmarking techniques to demonstrate some of the highlighted optimization principles, and introduce a scalable mirror quantum volume benchmark. We elucidate the importance of simple optimizations for improving benchmarking results, and note that such omissions can make a critical difference in comparisons. For example, when running mirror randomized benchmarking, we observe a reduction in error per qubit from 2% to 1% on a 26-qubit circuit with the inclusion of dynamic decoupling.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Exploiting Qubit Reuse through Mid-circuit Measurement and Reset

Quantum measurement is important to quantum computing as it extracts the outcome of the circuit at the end of the computation. Previously, all measurements have to be done at the end of the circuit. Otherwise, it will incur significant errors. But it is not the case now. Recently IBM started supporting dynamic circuits through hardware (instead of software by simulator). With mid-circuit hardware measurement, we can improve circuit efficacy and fidelity from three aspects: (a) reduced qubit usage, (b) reduced swap insertion, and (c) improved fidelity. We demonstrate this using real-world applications Bernstein Verizani on real hardware and show that circuit resource usage can be improved by 60\%, and circuit fidelity can be improved by 15\%. We design a compiler-assisted tool that can find and exploit the tradeoff between qubit reuse, fidelity, gate count, and circuit duration. We also developed a method for identifying whether qubit reuse will be beneficial for a given application. We evaluated our method on a representative set of essential applications. We can reduce resource usage by up to 80\% and circuit fidelity by up to 20\%.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Recursive Methods for Synthesizing Permutations on Limited-Connectivity Quantum Computers

We describe a family of recursive methods for the synthesis of qubit permutations on quantum computers with limited qubit connectivity. Two objectives are of importance: circuit size and depth. In each case we combine a scalable heuristic with a non-scalable, yet exact, synthesis. Our algorithms are applicable to generic connectivity constraints, scale favorably, and achieve close-to-optimal performance in many cases. We demonstrate the utility of these algorithms by optimizing the compilation of Quantum Volume circuits, and to disprove an old conjecture on reversals being the hardest permutation on a path.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Optimal synthesis into fixed XX interactions

We describe an optimal procedure, as well as its efficient software implementation, for exact and approximate synthesis of two-qubit unitary operations into any prescribed discrete family of XX-type interactions and local gates. This arises from the analysis and manipulation of certain polyhedral subsets of the space of canonical gates. Using this, we analyze which small sets of XX-type interactions cause the greatest improvement in expected infidelity under experimentally-motivated error models. For the exact circuit synthesis of Haar-randomly selected two-qubit operations, we find an improvement in estimated infidelity by ~31.4% when including alongside CX its square- and cube-roots, near to the optimal limit of ~36.9% obtained by including all fractional applications of CX.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

OpenQASM 3: A broader and deeper quantum assembly language

Quantum assembly languages are machine-independent languages that traditionally describe quantum computation in the circuit model. Open quantum assembly language (OpenQASM 2) was proposed as an imperative programming language for quantum circuits based on earlier QASM dialects. In principle, any quantum computation could be described using OpenQASM 2, but there is a need to describe a broader set of circuits beyond the language of qubits and gates. By examining interactive use cases, we recognize two different timescales of quantum-classical interactions: real-time classical computations that must be performed within the coherence times of the qubits, and near-time computations with less stringent timing. Since the near-time domain is adequately described by existing programming frameworks, we choose in OpenQASM 3 to focus on the real-time domain, which must be more tightly coupled to the execution of quantum operations. We add support for arbitrary control flow as well as calling external classical functions. In addition, we recognize the need to describe circuits at multiple levels of specificity, and therefore we extend the language to include timing, pulse control, and gate modifiers. These new language features create a multi-level intermediate representation for circuit development and optimization, as well as control sequence implementation for calibration, characterization, and error mitigation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Hardware-efficient random circuits to classify noise in a multi-qubit system

In this work we extend a multi-qubit benchmarking technique known as the Binned Output Generation (BOG) in order to discriminate between coherent and incoherent noise sources in the multi-qubit regime. While methods exist to discriminate coherent from incoherent noise at the single and few-qubit level, these methods scale poorly beyond a few qubits or must make assumptions about the form of the noise. On the other end of the spectrum, system-level benchmarking techniques exist, but fail to discriminate between coherent and incoherent noise sources. We experimentally verify the BOG against Randomized Benchmarking (RB) (the industry standard benchmarking technique) in the two-qubit regime, then apply this technique to a six qubit linear chain, a regime currently inaccessible to RB. In this experiment we inject an instantaneous coherent Z-type noise on each qubit and demonstrate that the measured coherent noise scales correctly with the magnitude of the injected noise, while the measured incoherent noise remains unchanged as expected. This demonstrates a robust technique to measure coherent errors in a variety of hardware.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Demonstration of quantum volume 64 on a superconducting quantum computing system

We improve the quality of quantum circuits on superconducting quantum computing systems, as measured by the quantum volume, with a combination of dynamical decoupling, compiler optimizations, shorter two-qubit gates, and excited state promoted readout. This result shows that the path to larger quantum volume systems requires the simultaneous increase of coherence, control gate fidelities, measurement fidelities, and smarter software which takes into account hardware details, thereby demonstrating the need to continue to co-design the software and hardware stack for the foreseeable future.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Validating quantum computers using randomized model circuits

We introduce a single-number metric, quantum volume, that can be measured using a concrete protocol on near-term quantum computers of modest size ($n\lesssim 50$), and measure it on several state-of-the-art transmon devices, finding values as high as 16. The quantum volume is linked to system error rates, and is empirically reduced by uncontrolled interactions within the system. It quantifies the largest random circuit of equal width and depth that the computer successfully implements. Quantum computing systems with high-fidelity operations, high connectivity, large calibrated gate sets, and circuit rewriting toolchains are expected to have higher quantum volumes. The quantum volume is a pragmatic way to measure and compare progress toward improved system-wide gate error rates for near-term quantum computation and error-correction experiments.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Quantum optimization using variational algorithms on near-term quantum devices

Universal fault-tolerant quantum computers will require error-free execution of long sequences of quantum gate operations, which is expected to involve millions of physical qubits. Before the full power of such machines will be available, near-term quantum devices will provide several hundred qubits and limited error correction. Still, there is a realistic prospect to run useful algorithms within the limited circuit depth of such devices. Particularly promising are optimization algorithms that follow a hybrid approach: the aim is to steer a highly entangled state on a quantum system to a target state that minimizes a cost function via variation of some gate parameters. This variational approach can be used both for classical optimization problems as well as for problems in quantum chemistry. The challenge is to converge to the target state given the limited coherence time and connectivity of the qubits. In this context, the quantum volume as a metric to compare the power of near-term quantum devices is discussed. With focus on chemistry applications, a general description of variational algorithms is provided and the mapping from fermions to qubits is explained. Coupled-cluster and heuristic trial wave-functions are considered for efficiently finding molecular ground states. Furthermore, simple error-mitigation schemes are introduced that could improve the accuracy of determining ground-state energies. Advancing these techniques may lead to near-term demonstrations of useful quantum computation with systems containing several hundred qubits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Open Quantum Assembly Language

This document describes a quantum assembly language (QASM) called OpenQASM that is used to implement experiments with low depth quantum circuits. OpenQASM represents universal physical circuits over the CNOT plus SU(2) basis with straight-line code that includes measurement, reset, fast feedback, and gate subroutines. The simple text language can be written by hand or by higher level tools and may be executed on the IBM Q Experience.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Nonlinear microwave photon-occupancy of a driven resonator strongly coupled to a transmon qubit

We measure photon-occupancy in a thin-film superconducting lumped element resonator coupled to a transmon qubit at 20$\,$mK and find a nonlinear dependence on the applied microwave power. The transmon-resonator system was operated in the strong dispersive regime, where the ac Stark shift ($2χ$) due to a single microwave photon present in the resonator was larger than the linewidth ($Γ$) of the qubit transition. When the resonator was coherently driven at $5.474325\,$GHz, the transition spectrum of the transmon at $4.982\,$GHz revealed well-resolved peaks, each corresponding to an individual photon number-state of the resonator. From the relative peak-heights we obtain the occupancy of the photon-states and the average photon-occupancy $\bar{n}$ of the resonator. We observed a nonlinear variation of $\bar{n}$ with the applied drive power $P_{rf}$ for $\bar{n} < 5$ and compare our results to numerical simulations of the system-bath master equation in the steady state, as well as to a semi-classical model for the resonator that includes the Jaynes-Cummings interaction between the transmon and the resonator. We find good quantitative agreement using both models and analysis reveals that the nonlinear behavior is principally due to shifts in the resonant frequency caused by a qubit-induced Jaynes-Cummings nonlinearity.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Scalable randomized benchmarking of non-Clifford gates

Randomized benchmarking is a widely used experimental technique to characterize the average error of quantum operations. Benchmarking procedures that scale to enable characterization of $n$-qubit circuits rely on efficient procedures for manipulating those circuits and, as such, have been limited to subgroups of the Clifford group. However, universal quantum computers require additional, non-Clifford gates to approximate arbitrary unitary transformations. We define a scalable randomized benchmarking procedure over $n$-qubit unitary matrices that correspond to protected non-Clifford gates for a class of stabilizer codes. We present efficient methods for representing and composing group elements, sampling them uniformly, and synthesizing corresponding $\mathrm{poly}(n)$-sized circuits. The procedure provides experimental access to two independent parameters that together characterize the average gate fidelity of a group element.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Characterizing errors on qubit operations via iterative randomized benchmarking

With improved gate calibrations reducing unitary errors, we achieve a benchmarked single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.95% with superconducting qubits in a circuit quantum electrodynamics system. We present a method for distinguishing between unitary and non-unitary errors in quantum gates by interleaving repetitions of a target gate within a randomized benchmarking sequence. The benchmarking fidelity decays quadratically with the number of interleaved gates for unitary errors but linearly for non-unitary, allowing us to separate systematic coherent errors from decoherent effects. With this protocol we show that the fidelity of the gates is not limited by unitary errors, but by another drive-activated source of decoherence such as amplitude fluctuations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

High contrast qubit interactions using multimode cavity QED

We introduce a new multimode cavity QED architecture for superconducting circuits which can be used to implement photonic memories, more efficient Purcell filters, and quantum simulations of photonic materials. We show that qubit interactions mediated by multimode cavities can have exponentially improved contrast for two qubit gates without sacrificing gate speed. Using two-qubits coupled via a three-mode cavity system we spectroscopically observe multimode strong couplings up to 102MHz and demonstrate suppressed interactions off-resonance of 10kHz when the qubits are ~600MHz detuned from the cavity resonance. We study Landau-Zener transitions in our multimode systems and demonstrate quasi-adiabatic loading of single photons into the multimode cavity in 25ns. We introduce an adiabatic gate protocol to realize a controlled-Z gate between the qubits in 95ns and create a Bell state with 94.7% fidelity. This corresponds to an on/off ratio (gate contrast) of 1000.

quant-ph↗