Advanced Usage

Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT)

Let us do an example that includes multi-qubit parameterized gates.

Here we wish to compute the discrete Fourier transform of [0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]. We do this in three steps:

  1. Write a function called qft3 to make a 3-qubit QFT quantum program.
  2. Write a state preparation quantum program.
  3. Execute state preparation followed by the QFT on the QVM.

First we define a function to make a 3-qubit QFT quantum program. This is a mix of Hadamard and CPHASE gates, with a final bit reversal correction at the end consisting of a single SWAP gate.

from math import pi

def qft3(q0, q1, q2):
    p = Program()
    p.inst( H(q2),
            CPHASE(pi/2.0, q1, q2),
            H(q1),
            CPHASE(pi/4.0, q0, q2),
            CPHASE(pi/2.0, q0, q1),
            H(q0),
            SWAP(q0, q2) )
    return p

There is a very important detail to recognize here: The function qft3 doesn’t compute the QFT, but rather it makes a quantum program to compute the QFT on qubits q0, q1, and q2.

We can see what this program looks like in Quil notation by doing the following:

print(qft3(0, 1, 2))

H 2
CPHASE(1.5707963267948966) 1 2
H 1
CPHASE(0.7853981633974483) 0 2
CPHASE(1.5707963267948966) 0 1
H 0
SWAP 0 2

Next, we want to prepare a state that corresponds to the sequence we want to compute the discrete Fourier transform of. Fortunately, this is easy, we just apply an \(X\)-gate to the zeroth qubit.

state_prep = Program().inst(X(0))

We can verify that this works by computing its wavefunction. However, we need to add some “dummy” qubits, because otherwise wavefunction would return a two-element vector.

add_dummy_qubits = Program().inst(I(1), I(2))
wavefunction = qvm.wavefunction(state_prep + add_dummy_qubits)
print(wavefunction)

(1+0j)|001>

If we have two quantum programs a and b, we can concatenate them by doing a + b. Using this, all we need to do is compute the QFT after state preparation to get our final result.

wavefunction = qvm.wavefunction(state_prep + qft3(0, 1, 2))
print(wavefunction.amplitudes)

array([  3.53553391e-01+0.j        ,   2.50000000e-01+0.25j      ,
         2.16489014e-17+0.35355339j,  -2.50000000e-01+0.25j      ,
        -3.53553391e-01+0.j        ,  -2.50000000e-01-0.25j      ,
        -2.16489014e-17-0.35355339j,   2.50000000e-01-0.25j      ])

We can verify this works by computing the (inverse) FFT from NumPy.

from numpy.fft import ifft
ifft([0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0], norm="ortho")

array([ 0.35355339+0.j        ,  0.25000000+0.25j      ,
        0.00000000+0.35355339j, -0.25000000+0.25j      ,
       -0.35355339+0.j        , -0.25000000-0.25j      ,
        0.00000000-0.35355339j,  0.25000000-0.25j      ])

Classical Control Flow

Here are a couple quick examples that show how much richer the classical control of a Quil program can be. In this first example, we have a register called classical_flag_register which we use for looping. Then we construct the loop in the following steps:

  1. We first initialize this register to 1 with the init_register program so our while loop will execute. This is often called the loop preamble or loop initialization.
  2. Next, we write body of the loop in a program itself. This will be a program that computes an \(X\) followed by an \(H\) on our qubit.
  3. Lastly, we put it all together using the while_do method.
# Name our classical registers:
classical_flag_register = 2

# Write out the loop initialization and body programs:
init_register = Program(TRUE([classical_flag_register]))
loop_body = Program(X(0), H(0)).measure(0, classical_flag_register)

# Put it all together in a loop program:
loop_prog = init_register.while_do(classical_flag_register, loop_body)

print(loop_prog)

TRUE [2]
LABEL @START1
JUMP-UNLESS @END2 [2]
X 0
H 0
MEASURE 0 [2]
JUMP @START1
LABEL @END2

Notice that the init_register program applied a Quil instruction directly to a classical register. There are several classical commands that can be used in this fashion:

  • TRUE which sets a single classical bit to be 1
  • FALSE which sets a single classical bit to be 0
  • NOT which flips a classical bit
  • AND which operates on two classical bits
  • OR which operates on two classical bits
  • MOVE which moves the value of a classical bit at one classical address into another
  • EXCHANGE which swaps the value of two classical bits

In this next example, we show how to do conditional branching in the form of the traditional if construct as in many programming languages. Much like the last example, we construct programs for each branch of the if, and put it all together by using the if_then method.

# Name our classical registers:
test_register = 1
answer_register = 0

# Construct each branch of our if-statement. We can have empty branches
# simply by having empty programs.
then_branch = Program(X(0))
else_branch = Program()

# Make a program that will put a 0 or 1 in test_register with 50% probability:
branching_prog = Program(H(1)).measure(1, test_register)

# Add the conditional branching:
branching_prog.if_then(test_register, then_branch, else_branch)

# Measure qubit 0 into our answer register:
branching_prog.measure(0, answer_register)

print(branching_prog)

H 1
MEASURE 1 [1]
JUMP-WHEN @THEN3 [1]
JUMP @END4
LABEL @THEN3
X 0
LABEL @END4
MEASURE 0 [0]

We can run this program a few times to see what we get in the answer_register.

qvm.run(branching_prog, [answer_register], 10)

[[1], [1], [1], [0], [1], [0], [0], [1], [1], [0]]

Parametric Depolarizing Noise

The Rigetti QVM has support for emulating certain types of noise models. One such model is parametric Pauli noise, which is defined by a set of 6 probabilities:

  • The probabilities \(P_X\), \(P_Y\), and \(P_Z\) which define respectively the probability of a Pauli \(X\), \(Y\), or \(Z\) gate getting applied to each qubit after every gate application. These probabilities are called the gate noise probabilities.
  • The probabilities \(P_X'\), \(P_Y'\), and \(P_Z'\) which define respectively the probability of a Pauli \(X\), \(Y\), or \(Z\) gate getting applied to the qubit being measured before it is measured. These probabilities are called the measurement noise probabilities.

We can instantiate a noisy QVM by creating a new connection with these probabilities specified.

# 20% chance of a X gate being applied after gate applications and before measurements.
gate_noise_probs = [0.2, 0.0, 0.0]
meas_noise_probs = [0.2, 0.0, 0.0]
noisy_qvm = api.QVMConnection(gate_noise=gate_noise_probs, measurement_noise=meas_noise_probs)

We can test this by applying an \(X\)-gate and measuring. Nominally, we should always measure 1.

p = Program().inst(X(0)).measure(0, 0)
print("Without Noise: {}".format(qvm.run(p, [0], 10)))
print("With Noise   : {}".format(noisy_qvm.run(p, [0], 10)))

Without Noise: [[1], [1], [1], [1], [1], [1], [1], [1], [1], [1]]
With Noise   : [[0], [0], [0], [0], [0], [1], [1], [1], [1], [0]]

Parametric Programs

A big advantage of working in pyQuil is that you are able to leverage all the functionality of Python to generate Quil programs. In quantum/classical hybrid algorithms this often leads to situations where complex classical functions are used to generate Quil programs. pyQuil provides a convenient construction to allow you to use Python functions to generate templates of Quil programs, called ParametricPrograms:

# This function returns a quantum circuit with different rotation angles on a gate on qubit 0
def rotator(angle):
    return Program(RX(angle, 0))

from pyquil.parametric import ParametricProgram
par_p = ParametricProgram(rotator) # This produces a new type of parameterized program object

The parametric program par_p now takes the same arguments as rotator:

print(par_p(0.5))

RX(0.5) 0

We can think of ParametricPrograms as a sort of template for Quil programs. They cache computations that happen in Python functions so that templates in Quil can be efficiently substituted.

Pauli Operator Algebra

Many algorithms require manipulating sums of Pauli combinations, such as \(\sigma = \frac{1}{2}I - \frac{3}{4}X_0Y_1Z_3 + (5-2i)Z_1X_2,\) where \(G_n\) indicates the gate \(G\) acting on qubit \(n\). We can represent such sums by constructing PauliTerm and PauliSum. The above sum can be constructed as follows:

from pyquil.paulis import ID, sX, sY, sZ

# Pauli term takes an operator "X", "Y", "Z", or "I"; a qubit to act on, and
# an optional coefficient.
a = 0.5 * ID
b = -0.75 * sX(0) * sY(1) * sZ(3)
c = (5-2j) * sZ(1) * sX(2)

# Construct a sum of Pauli terms.
sigma = a + b + c
print("sigma = {}".format(sigma))

sigma = 0.5*I + -0.75*X0*Y1*Z3 + (5-2j)*Z1*X2

Right now, the primary thing one can do with Pauli terms and sums is to construct the exponential of the Pauli term, i.e., \(\exp[-i\beta\sigma]\). This is accomplished by constructing a parameterized Quil program that is evaluated when passed values for the coefficients of the angle \(\beta\).

Related to exponentiating Pauli sums we provide utility functions for finding the commuting subgroups of a Pauli sum and approximating the exponential with the Suzuki-Trotter approximation through fourth order.

When arithmetic is done with Pauli sums, simplification is automatically done.

The following shows an instructive example of all three.

import pyquil.paulis as pl

# Simplification
sigma_cubed = sigma * sigma * sigma
print("Simplified  : {}".format(sigma_cubed))
print()

#Produce Quil code to compute exp[iX]
H = -1.0 * sX(0)
print("Quil to compute exp[iX] on qubit 0:")
print(pl.exponential_map(H)(1.0))

Simplified  : (32.46875-30j)*I + (-16.734375+15j)*X0*Y1*Z3 + (71.5625-144.625j)*Z1*X2

Quil to compute exp[iX] on qubit 0:
H 0
RZ(-2.0) 0
H 0

A more sophisticated feature of pyQuil is that it can create templates of Quil programs in ParametricProgram objects. An example use of these templates is in exponentiating a Hamiltonian that is parametrized by a constant. This commonly occurs in variational algorithms. The function exponential_map is used to compute exp[i * alpha * H] without explicitly filling in a value for alpha.

parametric_prog = pl.exponential_map(H)
print(parametric_prog(0.0))
print(parametric_prog(1.0))
print(parametric_prog(2.0))

This ParametricProgram now acts as a template, caching the result of the exponential_map calculation so that it can be used later with new values.