Strawberry Fields: A Software Platform for Photonic Quantum Computing

Killoran, Nathan; Izaac, Josh; Quesada, Nicolás; Bergholm, Ville; Amy, Matthew; Weedbrook, Christian

doi:10.22331/q-2019-03-11-129

Cited by 229 publications

(197 citation statements)

References 102 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

192

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In contrast to quantum full-stack libraries that focus on the discrete gate model, Strawberry Fields is a Pythonbased library for the continuous gate model, developed by the startup Xanadu [63,64]. It is based on the Blackbird quantum programming language and it is the only quantum software project built on top of a deep learning library: its computational backend for simulations is written in TensorFlow [65].…”

Section: Projects Consideredmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open source software in quantum computing

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Open source software is becoming crucial in the design and testing of quantum algorithms. Many of the tools are backed by major commercial vendors with the goal to make it easier to develop quantum software: this mirrors how well-funded open machine learning frameworks enabled the development of complex models and their execution on equally complex hardware. We review a wide range of open source software for quantum computing, covering all stages of the quantum toolchain from quantum hardware interfaces through quantum compilers to implementations of quantum algorithms, as well as all quantum computing paradigms, including quantum annealing, and discrete and continuous-variable gate-model quantum computing. The evaluation of each project covers characteristics such as documentation, licence, the choice of programming language, compliance with norms of software engineering, and the culture of the project. We find that while the diversity of projects is mesmerizing, only a few attract external developers and even many commercially backed frameworks have shortcomings in software engineering. Based on these observations, we highlight the best practices that could foster a more active community around quantum computing software that welcomes newcomers to the field, but also ensures high-quality, well-documented code.

show abstract

Section: Projects Consideredmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open source software in quantum computing

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…and this value approaches unity as  t 0 (  r 1) as illustrated in figure 2(c), where the Wigner functions for various parameters are evaluated numerically using the open-source Python modules QuTip [41] and Strawberry Fields [42]. In order to verify that the codes perform as expected, we computed the above photon catalysis step using QuTip and confirmed that the output state is identically a displaced Fock state for correctly chosen parameters.…”

Section: Lossy Casementioning

confidence: 67%

Non-Gaussian and Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill state preparation by photon catalysis

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Continuous-variable quantum-computing is the most scalable implementation of QC to date but requires non-Gaussian resources to allow exponential speedup and quantum correction, using error encoding such as Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states. However, GKP state generation is still an experimental challenge. We show theoretically that photon catalysis, the interference of coherent states with single-photon states followed by photon-number-resolved detection, is a powerful enabler for non-Gaussian quantum state engineering such as exactly displaced single-photon states and Msymmetric superpositions of squeezed vacuum (SSV), including squeezed cat states (M = 2). By including photon-counting based state breeding, we demonstrate the potential to enlarge SSV states and produce GKP states.

show abstract

“…Q# [29] is a hybrid classical-quantum language designed to facilitate the development of programs that can be run on a simulator (and eventually on actual hardware). Strawberry Fields [30] is a Python-based quantum programming framework that is based on the "continuous variable" (CV) model of computation.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

t|ket⟩: a retargetable compiler for NISQ devices

Sivarajah

Dilkes

Cowtan

et al. 2020

Quantum Sci. Technol.

262

208

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present t|ket , a quantum software development platform produced by Cambridge Quantum Computing Ltd. The heart of t|ket is a language-agnostic optimising compiler designed to generate code for a variety of NISQ devices, which has several features designed to minimise the influence of device error. The compiler has been extensively benchmarked and outperforms most competitors in terms of circuit optimisation and qubit routing. User Runtime GPU Classical HPC Logging Task Manager Scheduler Real-Time Controller Control Device Control Device Readout Device … Figure 2: Idealised system architecture for a NISQ Computerprogrammable devices which drive the evolution of the qubits and read out their states. An example of this kind of device is an arbitrary waveform generator, as found in many superconducting architectures. The microwave pulse sequences output by these devices are generated by simple low-level programs optimised for speed of execution. These devices, and the real-time controller which synchronises them, operate in a hard real-time environment where the computation takes place on the time-scale of the coherence time of the qubits. These components combine to execute a single instance of a quantum circuit, possibly with some classical control. By analogy with GPU computing, we refer to this layer as a kernel. One level higher, the scheduler is responsible for dispatching circuits to be run and packaging the results for the higher layers. It is also likely to be heavily involved in the device calibration process. (Calibration data are an important input to the compiler.) This layer and those below may be thought of as the low-level system software of the quantum computer, and must normally be physically close to the device. In the layer above we find service-oriented middleware, principally the task manager, which may distribute jobs to different quantum devices or simulators, GPUs, and perhaps conventional HPC resources, to perform the various subroutines of the quantum algorithm. This layer may also allocate access to the quantum system among multiple users. Finally, at the highest level is the user runtime, which defines the overall algorithm and integrates the results of the subcomputations to produce the final answer.

show abstract

Strawberry Fields: A Software Platform for Photonic Quantum Computing

Cited by 229 publications

References 102 publications

Open source software in quantum computing

Open source software in quantum computing

Non-Gaussian and Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill state preparation by photon catalysis

t|ket⟩: a retargetable compiler for NISQ devices

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About