Equivalence Checking of Dynamic Quantum Circuits

Abstract: Despite the rapid development of quantum computing these years, state-of-the-art quantum devices still contain only a very limited number of qubits. One possible way to execute more realistic algorithms in near-term quantum devices is to employ dynamic quantum circuits, in which measurements can happen during the circuit and their outcomes are used to control other parts of the circuit. This technique can help to significantly reduce the resources required to achieve a given accuracy of a quantum algorithm. However, since this type of quantum circuits are more flexible, their verification is much more challenging. In this paper, we give a formal definition of dynamic quantum circuits and then propose to characterise their functionality in terms of ensembles of linear operators. Based on this novel semantics, two dynamic quantum circuits are equivalent if they have the same functionality. We further propose and implement two decision diagram-based algorithms for checking the equivalence of dynamic quantum circuits. Experiments show that embedding classical logic into conventional quantum circuits does not incur significant time and space burden.