Proving Quantum Programs Correct
Abstract
As quantum computing progresses steadily from theory into practice, programmers will face a common problem: How can they be sure that their code does what they intend it to do? This paper presents encouraging results in the application of mechanized proof to the domain of quantum programming in the context of the SQIR development. It verifies the correctness of a range of a quantum algorithms including Grover's algorithm and quantum phase estimation, a key component of Shor's algorithm. In doing so, it aims to highlight both the successes and challenges of formal verification in the quantum context and motivate the theorem proving community to target quantum computing as an application domain.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2010.01240,
title = {Proving Quantum Programs Correct},
author = {Kesha Hietala and Robert Rand and Shih-Han Hung and Liyi Li and Michael Hicks},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.01240},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
version 4 updated DOI (paper content is the same); version 3 (final version) has updated formatting and improved writing; version 2 includes updated acknowledgments and a new appendix with simple SQIR example programs