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Static Analysis of Quantum Programs

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Static Analysis (SAS 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14995))

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Abstract

In principle, the design and implementation of quantum programming languages are the same essential tasks as for conventional (classical) programming languages. High-level programming constructs and compilation tools are structurally similar in both cases. The difference is mainly in the hardware machine executing the final code, which in the case of quantum programming languages is a quantum processor, i.e. a physical object obeying the laws of quantum mechanics. Therefore, special technical solutions are required to comply with such laws. In this paper, we show how static analysis can guarantee the correct implementation of quantum programs by introducing two data-flow analyses for detecting some ‘wrong’ uses of quantum variables. A compiler including such analyses would allow for a higher level of abstraction in the quantum language, relieving the programmer of low-level tasks such as the safe removal of temporary variables.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The ket notation \(\left| {\psi }\right\rangle \) is due to Dirac and represents the vector \((\alpha ,\beta )^T\) in linear algebraic notation.

  2. 2.

    The Toffoli gate corresponds to a double controlled not; in particular we negate the target if both controllers are 1.

  3. 3.

    Given two sets A and B, .

  4. 4.

    Functions that contain only classical gates, such as the NOT and the CNOT gates.

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Funding

This work was partially supported by “INdAM - GNCS Project”, code CUP_E53C22001930001, and partially supported by the project SERICS (PE00000014) under the MUR National Recovery and Resilience Plan funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU, and by PRIN2022PNRR “RAP-ARA” (PE6) - codice MUR: P2022HXNSC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Verona, Verona, Italy

    Nicola Assolini, Alessandra Di Pierro & Isabella Mastroeni

Authors
  1. Nicola Assolini
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  2. Alessandra Di Pierro
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  3. Isabella Mastroeni
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Correspondence to Nicola Assolini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Roberto Giacobazzi

  2. IMDEA Software Institute, Pozuelo de Alarcon, Madrid, Spain

    Alessandra Gorla

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Assolini, N., Di Pierro, A., Mastroeni, I. (2025). Static Analysis of Quantum Programs. In: Giacobazzi, R., Gorla, A. (eds) Static Analysis. SAS 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14995. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74776-2_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74776-2_1

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