English

Strawberry Fields: A Software Platform for Photonic Quantum Computing

Quantum Physics 2019-03-12 v2 Computational Physics

Abstract

We introduce Strawberry Fields, an open-source quantum programming architecture for light-based quantum computers, and detail its key features. Built in Python, Strawberry Fields is a full-stack library for design, simulation, optimization, and quantum machine learning of continuous-variable circuits. The platform consists of three main components: (i) an API for quantum programming based on an easy-to-use language named Blackbird; (ii) a suite of three virtual quantum computer backends, built in NumPy and TensorFlow, each targeting specialized uses; and (iii) an engine which can compile Blackbird programs on various backends, including the three built-in simulators, and -- in the near future -- photonic quantum information processors. The library also contains examples of several paradigmatic algorithms, including teleportation, (Gaussian) boson sampling, instantaneous quantum polynomial, Hamiltonian simulation, and variational quantum circuit optimization.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1804.03159,
  title  = {Strawberry Fields: A Software Platform for Photonic Quantum Computing},
  author = {Nathan Killoran and Josh Izaac and Nicolás Quesada and Ville Bergholm and Matthew Amy and Christian Weedbrook},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.03159},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

Try the Strawberry Fields Interactive website, located at http://strawberryfields.ai . Source code available at https://github.com/XanaduAI/strawberryfields. Accepted in Quantum

R2 v1 2026-06-23T01:18:24.359Z