Why Are We Unrolling? The Importance of Structured Quantum Programs for Compilation
Abstract
As quantum software stacks scale up to support future fault-tolerant quantum hardware and algorithms, quantum compilation is becoming an increasingly important component of the stack. How do we ensure that our software stacks support dynamic algorithms, including patterns such as mid-circuit measurement feedforward and repeat-until-success, with hundreds of logical qubits and billions of quantum operations? To do so, we must re-think how we represent quantum programs beyond straight-line circuits, to representations that include classical structure and dynamism, and make this the default representation to consider when performing quantum compilation. In this work, we present important patterns and algorithms from fault-tolerant quantum applications which admit a structured representation that we argue is crucial to preserve, and set a challenge to the community to compile such representations without unrolling them into straight-line quantum circuits. We also explore the status quo of structured program support in quantum software, and ask ourselves the rhetorical question: how much more efficient can we make quantum compilation tooling when we take into account the additional information from classical structure?
Related
- pfoqcompiler: Efficient Compilation of Quantum Control in Recursive First-Order Quantum Programs
- Quantum circuit compilation with constant overhead
- A Compilation Framework for Quantum Simulation of Non-unitary Dynamics
- C-Phase-Aware Compilation for Efficient Fault-Tolerant Quantum Execution
- Ultra-large-scale compilation and manipulation of quantum circuits with Pandora
BibTeX
@misc{rovara2026unrolling,
title = {{Why Are We Unrolling? The Importance of Structured Quantum Programs for Compilation}},
author = {Damian Rovara and Daniel Haag and Mark Koch and Josh Izaac and Seyon Sivarajah and Robert Wille and Augustín Borgna and Lukas Burgholzer and Brad Chase and Olivia Di Matteo and David Ittah},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.16171},
eprint = {2609.16171},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.16171},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Why Are We Unrolling? The Importance of Structured Quantum Programs for Compilation
AU - Damian Rovara
AU - Daniel Haag
AU - Mark Koch
AU - Josh Izaac
AU - Seyon Sivarajah
AU - Robert Wille
AU - Augustín Borgna
AU - Lukas Burgholzer
AU - Brad Chase
AU - Olivia Di Matteo
AU - David Ittah
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.16171
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.16171
AB - As quantum software stacks scale up to support future fault-tolerant quantum hardware and algorithms, quantum compilation is becoming an increasingly important component of the stack. How do we ensure that our software stacks support dynamic algorithms, including patterns such as mid-circuit measurement feedforward and repeat-until-success, with hundreds of logical qubits and billions of quantum operations? To do so, we must re-think how we represent quantum programs beyond straight-line circuits, to representations that include classical structure and dynamism, and make this the default representation to consider when performing quantum compilation. In this work, we present important patterns and algorithms from fault-tolerant quantum applications which admit a structured representation that we argue is crucial to preserve, and set a challenge to the community to compile such representations without unrolling them into straight-line quantum circuits. We also explore the status quo of structured program support in quantum software, and ask ourselves the rhetorical question: how much more efficient can we make quantum compilation tooling when we take into account the additional information from classical structure?
ER -