Static Entanglement Analysis of Quantum Programs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a static analysis method for quantum programs in Q\# that constructs an entanglement graph to understand qubit interactions, aiding in debugging and security.

Contribution

It is the first to develop a static entanglement analysis technique for Q\# quantum programs, including interprocedural analysis.

Findings

Successfully constructs entanglement graphs for Q\# programs

Analyzes entanglement within and between modules

Enhances reliability and security of quantum software

Abstract

Quantum entanglement plays a crucial role in quantum computing. Entangling information has important implications for understanding the behavior of quantum programs and avoiding entanglement-induced errors. Entanglement analysis is a static code analysis technique that determines which qubit may entangle with another qubit and establishes an entanglement graph to represent the whole picture of interactions between entangled qubits. This paper presents the first static entanglement analysis method for quantum programs developed in the practical quantum programming language Q\#. Our method first constructs an interprocedural control flow graph (ICFG) for a Q\# program and then calculates the entanglement information not only within each module but also between modules of the program. The analysis results can help improve the reliability and security of quantum programs.