Quantum programming

Quantum programming is the process of designing or assembling sequences of instructions, called quantum circuits, using gates, switches, and operators to manipulate a quantum system for a desired outcome or results of a given experiment. Quantum circuit algorithms can be implemented on integrated circuits, conducted with instrumentation, or written in a programming language for use with a quantum computer or a quantum processor. With quantum processor based systems, quantum programming languages help express quantum algorithms using high-level constructs. The field is deeply rooted in the open-source philosophy and as a result most of the quantum software discussed in this article is freely available as open-source software. Quantum computers, such as those based on the KLM protocol, a linear optical quantum computing (LOQC) model, use quantum algorithms (circuits) implemented with electronics, integrated circuits, instrumentation, sensors, and/or by other physical means. Other circuits designed for experimentation related to quantum systems can be instrumentation and sensor based. Quantum instruction sets are used to turn higher level algorithms into physical instructions that can be executed on quantum processors. Sometimes these instructions are specific to a given hardware platform, e.g. ion traps or superconducting qubits. cQASM, also known as common QASM, is a hardware-agnostic quantum assembly language which guarantees the interoperability between all the quantum compilation and simulation tools. It was introduced by the QCA Lab at TUDelft. Quil (instruction set architecture) Quil is an instruction set architecture for quantum computing that first introduced a shared quantum/classical memory model. It was introduced by Robert Smith, Michael Curtis, and William Zeng in A Practical Quantum Instruction Set Architecture. Many quantum algorithms (including quantum teleportation, quantum error correction, simulation, and optimization algorithms) require a shared memory architecture.