Core Concepts
A visual analytics tool for exploring noise, errors, and optimizing quantum circuits to improve the performance and reliability of quantum computing systems.
Abstract
The paper presents QVis, a visual analytics tool for analyzing the performance of quantum computing systems and optimizing quantum circuits. The key features of QVis include:
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Multi-scale Temporal Performance Exploration:
- The Multi-scale Time Series View provides a focus+context visualization to explore temporal patterns in quantum device performance metrics like readout error, qubit lifetime (T1), and qubit coherence time (T2).
- The heatmap representation aggregates data to mitigate visual clutter and reveal broader trends.
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Clustering Analysis of Qubits:
- The Clustering View uses k-means clustering to group qubits with similar temporal performance patterns, allowing the identification of outliers and significant subgroups.
- The Qubit Similarity Distance View provides a heatmap to compare the distance between all pairs of qubits, further highlighting abnormal behavior.
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Interactive Hardware Topology Visualization:
- The Topology View shows the layout and connectivity of the qubits, linking it to the other views to provide a comprehensive understanding of the device.
- Users can select specific qubits or clusters to focus the analysis on areas of interest.
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Quantum Circuit Optimization Visualization:
- QVis integrates with the IBM Qiskit transpiler to visualize the effects of different optimization levels on circuit depth and the number of gates.
- The visualizations help developers analyze optimized circuits and design more efficient quantum algorithms.
The authors demonstrate the application of QVis using a 127-qubit data set from the IBM Washington processor over 16 months, showcasing its capabilities in exploring noise, errors, and optimizing quantum computations.
Stats
The distribution of T2 times observed for qubit 4 of the IBM transmon device Washington for the period 1-Jan-2022 to 30-Apr-2023 shows significant variations in system behavior and fluctuations in computational errors.
The readout error data reveals insights into how coherence changes over the selected time range.
Quotes
"Driven by potential exponential speedups in business, security, and scientific scenarios, interest in quantum computing is surging."
"As the complexity of quantum device architectures increases, reasoning about noise and its impact on device performance becomes more difficult."
"Creating shallower (low-depth) circuits by circuit optimization could reduce the execution cost of cloud quantum computers."