{
  "abstract": "We present AlchemQ v0.5, a proof-of-concept system that couples an untrusted beam-search optimizer with a machine-checkable per-result certification layer and a versioned certificate protocol (0.2.0), so that every optimized circuit ships with a verifiable artifact rather than a bare claim. The certifier proves equivalence up to global phase by ZX-calculus full reduction, with a numeric-tensor fallback based on the optimal Hilbert-Schmidt overlap. Certificates are self-contained and tamper-evident: canonical gate-canon-v1 hashes, measured residuals, tri-state verdicts (certified/rejected/inconclusive), and versioned phase-note schemas for cross-platform reproducibility. The agent aggregates three fuzzy t-norms, cannot return an uncertified circuit, and since v0.4 guarantees no componentwise regression against the original. On a benchmark of 100 circuits, all 400 optimizations terminate without error, every returned circuit is certified, every mutation is detected, and a 2998-test suite passes on two platforms. The PyZX baseline is strong (21.4% mean T-count reduction over 82 circuits) and the agent is strictly better on 9/100; the three t-norms return identical circuits on all 100 standard instances, diverging only on 4/38 of an adversarial suite. Two case studies are new: a false negative root-caused to a pivot-normalization bug in PyZX's compare_tensors (pivot 4.7e-9; the optimal-overlap residual is 7.4e-11), and eight certificates rejected on macOS due to BLAS-dependent floats in phase_note. Both were fixed; all artifact sets validate 400/400 on both platforms. A pilot run on IBM Heron r2 gives a certified circuit 78% shallower with 65% fewer two-qubit gates; output quality favors it on all three metrics but is not significant at 1024 shots. We release the certificate specification and a standalone reference verifier (Apache-2.0) with data and scripts; the engine is proprietary.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2609.19160",
  "author_total": 1,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Adam Laabs"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9cyeyzhsyjnnq.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2609.19160",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "9cyeyzhsyjnnq",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19160",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "quant-ph"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1702|Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7213581638",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.19160",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-01",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9cyeyzhsyjnnq.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:22:19Z",
      "native_id": "2609.19160",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19160"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:quant-ph",
      "subfield": "quantum"
    }
  ],
  "title": "AlchemQ: Proof-Carrying Quantum Circuit Optimization with Per-Result Equivalence Certificates",
  "title_text": "AlchemQ: Proof-Carrying Quantum Circuit Optimization with Per-Result Equivalence Certificates",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:22:19Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9cyeyzhsyjnnq",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}