Graph-Based Pulse Representation for Diverse Quantum Control Hardware

TL;DR

This paper introduces pulselib, a graph-based pulse representation for quantum control hardware that enhances flexibility and efficiency in generating hardware-specific pulses, supporting diverse quantum systems.

Contribution

The paper presents pulselib, a novel graph-based pulse representation inspired by classical compilation models, enabling flexible and efficient quantum pulse control across hardware platforms.

Findings

Pulselib effectively captures high-level pulse information.

Supports hardware-specific pulse translation.

Facilitates complex pulse schemes like trapped-ion gates.

Abstract

Pulse-level control of quantum systems is critical for enabling gate implementations, calibration procedures, and Hamiltonian evolution which fundamentally are not supported by the traditional circuit model. This level of control necessitates both efficient generation and representation. In this work, we propose pulselib - a graph-based pulse-level representation. A graph structure, with nodes consisting of parametrized fundamental waveforms, stores all the high-level pulse information while staying flexible for translation into hardware-specific inputs. We motivate pulselib by comparing its feature set and information flow through the pulse layer of the software stack with currently available pulse representations. We describe the architecture of this proposed representation that mimics the abstract syntax tree (AST) model from classical compilation pipelines. Finally, we outline applications like trapped-ion-specific gate and shelving pulse schemes whose constraints and implementation can be written and represented due to pulselib's graph-based architecture.