A Dynamic Intermediate Representation for Hybrid Quantum-Classical Programs
Abstract
Quantum compilers typically follow the circuit model, representing programs as fixed sequences of gates. This static view breaks down in hybrid quantum-classical applications, where gate choices depend on runtime data or measurement results. We introduce a new Intermediate Representation (IR) that elevates gates to first-class values, enabling their dynamic creation, composition, and control. This unified representation allows classical computation to steer quantum behaviour, capturing phenomena including stochastic gate selection, adaptive error correction, and measurement-driven computation within a single framework. Case studies in noise modelling, randomised compilation, error correction, and measurement-based quantum computing show that our IR expresses these programs compactly and supports optimisations that were not possible in the circuit model. Evaluation on a benchmark suite of hybrid quantum-classical programs indicates that our IR represents programs compactly and facilitates compiler analysis and transformation.
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BibTeX
@misc{rice2026dynamic,
title = {{A Dynamic Intermediate Representation for Hybrid Quantum-Classical Programs}},
author = {Alex Rice and Chris Heunen and Tobias Grosser},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.01037},
eprint = {2609.01037},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01037},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Dynamic Intermediate Representation for Hybrid Quantum-Classical Programs
AU - Alex Rice
AU - Chris Heunen
AU - Tobias Grosser
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.01037
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01037
AB - Quantum compilers typically follow the circuit model, representing programs as fixed sequences of gates. This static view breaks down in hybrid quantum-classical applications, where gate choices depend on runtime data or measurement results. We introduce a new Intermediate Representation (IR) that elevates gates to first-class values, enabling their dynamic creation, composition, and control. This unified representation allows classical computation to steer quantum behaviour, capturing phenomena including stochastic gate selection, adaptive error correction, and measurement-driven computation within a single framework. Case studies in noise modelling, randomised compilation, error correction, and measurement-based quantum computing show that our IR expresses these programs compactly and supports optimisations that were not possible in the circuit model. Evaluation on a benchmark suite of hybrid quantum-classical programs indicates that our IR represents programs compactly and facilitates compiler analysis and transformation.
ER -