Implicit Test Oracles for Quantum Computing

TL;DR

This paper proposes four universal properties as implicit test oracles for quantum computing, enabling automated testing of quantum circuits and simulators to improve reliability and reduce manual verification efforts.

Contribution

It introduces a novel set of properties serving as implicit test oracles specifically tailored for quantum computing verification.

Findings

Identifies four key properties for quantum circuits: probability distributions, fixed qubit width, reversibility, entropy conservation.

Suggests these properties can automate testing processes for quantum software.

Provides a framework for automatic, random, or fuzz testing of quantum programs.

Abstract

Testing can be key to software quality assurance. Automated verification may increase throughput and reduce human fallibility errors. Test scripts supply inputs, run programs and check their outputs mechanically using test oracles. In software engineering implicit oracles automatically check for universally undesirable behaviour, such as the software under test crashing. We propose 4 properties (probability distributions, fixed qubit width, reversibility and entropy conservation) which all quantum computing must have and suggest they could be implicit test oracles for automatic, random, or fuzz testing of quantum circuits and simulators of quantum programs.