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A quantum computing performance simulator based on circuit failure probability and fault path counting

Publication ,  Journal Article
Van Rynbach, A; Ahsan, M; Kim, J
Published in: ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems
March 1, 2018

Quantum computing performance simulators are needed to provide practical metrics for the effectiveness of executing theoretical quantum information processing protocols on physical hardware. In this work, we present a tool to simulate the execution of fault-tolerant quantum computation by automating the tracking of common fault paths for error propagation through an encoded circuit block and quantifying the failure probability of each encoded qubit throughout the circuit. Our simulator runs a fault path counter on encoded circuit blocks to determine the probability that two or more errors remain on the encoded qubits after each block is executed, and it combines errors from all the encoded blocks to estimate performance metrics such as the logical qubit failure probability, the overall circuit failure probability, the number of qubits used, and the time required to run the overall circuit. Our technique efficiently estimates the upper bound of the error probability and provides a useful measure of the error threshold at low error probabilities where conventional Monte Carlo methods are ineffective. We describe a way of simplifying the fault-tolerant measurement process in the Steane code to reduce the number of error correction steps necessary. We present simulation results comparing the execution of quantum adders, which constitute a major part of Shor’s algorithm.

Duke Scholars

Published In

ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems

DOI

EISSN

1550-4840

ISSN

1550-4832

Publication Date

March 1, 2018

Volume

14

Issue

1

Related Subject Headings

  • Computer Hardware & Architecture
  • 4606 Distributed computing and systems software
  • 1007 Nanotechnology
  • 1006 Computer Hardware
  • 0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering
 

Citation

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Van Rynbach, A., Ahsan, M., & Kim, J. (2018). A quantum computing performance simulator based on circuit failure probability and fault path counting. ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1145/3154837
Van Rynbach, A., M. Ahsan, and J. Kim. “A quantum computing performance simulator based on circuit failure probability and fault path counting.” ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems 14, no. 1 (March 1, 2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3154837.
Van Rynbach A, Ahsan M, Kim J. A quantum computing performance simulator based on circuit failure probability and fault path counting. ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems. 2018 Mar 1;14(1).
Van Rynbach, A., et al. “A quantum computing performance simulator based on circuit failure probability and fault path counting.” ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems, vol. 14, no. 1, Mar. 2018. Scopus, doi:10.1145/3154837.
Van Rynbach A, Ahsan M, Kim J. A quantum computing performance simulator based on circuit failure probability and fault path counting. ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems. 2018 Mar 1;14(1).

Published In

ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems

DOI

EISSN

1550-4840

ISSN

1550-4832

Publication Date

March 1, 2018

Volume

14

Issue

1

Related Subject Headings

  • Computer Hardware & Architecture
  • 4606 Distributed computing and systems software
  • 1007 Nanotechnology
  • 1006 Computer Hardware
  • 0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering