QUARK-plugin-quantinuum

This is a QUARK plugin that implements access to running QUARK benchmarks on Quantinuum devices.

Access is provided through Quantinuum Nexus, and use of the Quantinuum backends requires setting up a Nexus account. Please see the Nexus documentation for more information on the available devices.

Once you have a Nexus account, authentication is provided through the qnexus python package. With this plugin installed, simply run qnx login in the terminal before running your QUARK benchmark configuration.

Example benchmark configurations can be found in examples.

Please note that running a benchmark on Nexus requires a nexus_upload step followed by nexus_run. The reason for this split is to allow running an uploaded benchmark multiple times with different configurations without needing multiple uploads. See below for more details.

Run a benchmark config using:

quark -c <config_file>

Registered QUARK Modules

The modules registered by this plugin and their configuration APIs are documented below. Pipeline step names are the names to use in QUARK configuration files.

Nexus Upload

Pipeline step name: nexus_upload

Defined in nexus_upload.py.

Uploads pytket circuits to Quantinuum Nexus and passes Nexus circuit references to a later Nexus execution module.

Example:

- "free_fermion": {output_circuit_type: "pytket", n_shots: 100}
- "nexus_upload": {project_name: "Quark Benchmarking"}

Nexus Run Backend

Pipeline step name: nexus_run

Defined in quantinuuum_nexus.py.

Compiles uploaded Nexus circuits for a Quantinuum backend, executes the compiled circuits, and returns counts for benchmark postprocessing.

Example:

- "free_fermion": {output_circuit_type: "pytket", n_shots: 100}
- "nexus_upload": {project_name: "Quark Benchmarking"}
- "nexus_run": {device: "H2-1LE", compile_optimization_level: 1}

Aer Simulator Backend

Pipeline step name: aer_simulator

Defined in aer_simulator.py.

For testing purposes, runs simulation benchmarks locally with qiskit_aer.AerSimulator and returns counts for downstream benchmark postprocessing.

Example:

- "free_fermion": {output_circuit_type: "qiskit", n_shots: 100}
- "aer_simulator": {noise_rate: 0.001}

Free Fermion Benchmark

Pipeline step name: free_fermion

Defined in free_fermion.py.

This module is only used for testing purposes and is not up-to-date. For actual benchmarking purposes, please use the Free Fermion benchmark from QUARK-plugin-hamiltonian-simulation.