Qiskit Backend Specifications for OpenQASM and OpenPulse Experiments

TL;DR

This paper introduces standardized APIs and data structures for quantum experiment specification, including OpenPulse for pulse-level control, to unify and improve quantum backend interactions.

Contribution

It provides a common interface and data format for quantum backends and introduces OpenPulse for detailed pulse-level experiment control.

Findings

Standardized API and data structure for quantum backends

OpenPulse enables pulse-level experiment specification

Facilitates hardware-agnostic quantum experiment design

Abstract

As interest in quantum computing grows, there is a pressing need for standardized API's so that algorithm designers, circuit designers, and physicists can be provided a common reference frame for designing, executing, and optimizing experiments. There is also a need for a language specification that goes beyond gates and allows users to specify the time dynamics of a quantum experiment and recover the time dynamics of the output. In this document we provide a specification for a common interface to backends (simulators and experiments) and a standarized data structure (Qobj --- quantum object) for sending experiments to those backends via Qiskit. We also introduce OpenPulse, a language for specifying pulse level control (i.e. control of the continuous time dynamics) of a general quantum device independent of the specific hardware implementation.