Handling Imperfections in Subcircuit Compilation for Linear Optical Quantum Computing
Abstract
Linear Optical Quantum Computing (LOQC) is emerging as a promising technology in large-scale quantum computing. Corresponding devices, including linear optical circuits, are rapidly growing in size and fabrication precision. However, even with improved quality, the circuits still exhibit imperfections leading to photon loss or phase noise that vary across the circuit. Already small deficiencies can have a vast impact on both accuracy and efficiency. For computations that do not require the entire linear optical circuit, so-called subcircuits, one can choose where to perform the computation, opening optimization opportunities that are addressed by subcircuit compilation. Current compilers spread the subcircuit's computation across the entire circuit, connecting the same input and output ports, thereby failing to fully exploit the optimization opportunities. However, given the subcircuit's reduced size compared to the entire circuit, one can keep its implementation localized and intentionally route photons to connect good input and output ports. This, however, is a highly non-trivial task, as numerous options must be weighed against one another, and the quality of the solution is influenced by a wide range of hardware parameters. In particular, the reflectivities of imperfect beam splitters can lead to photon losses during routing, which must be traded off against losses at the input and output ports due to imperfect transmission rates. Since current compilers do not account for these effects, we propose the first efficient subcircuit compilation method that optimizes for the coincidence rate, the probability of successfully measuring all desired photons, by handling hardware imperfections. Our evaluations demonstrate significant improvement over existing methods in robustness against phase noise and significantly increased coincidence rates across all benchmarks of up to plus 33.2%.
Related
- CUDA-Q Logical: Retargetable Compilation for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing
- Compiling Together: High-Throughput Distributed Quantum Computing via Multi-Compilation
- Beyond white- and black-box modeling tools in optical communications and optical computing: physics-informed data-driven modeling
- Hypervectors from Optical Disorder: Programmable Encoding and Optical Inference for Hyperdimensional Computing
- Reaching the optical propagation limit in temporal analog computing
BibTeX
@misc{forster2026handling,
title = {{Handling Imperfections in Subcircuit Compilation for Linear Optical Quantum Computing}},
author = {Tobias Forster and Yannick Stade and Andreas Fyrillas and Jean Senellart and Lukas Burgholzer and Robert Wille},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.13379},
eprint = {2609.13379},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.13379},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Handling Imperfections in Subcircuit Compilation for Linear Optical Quantum Computing
AU - Tobias Forster
AU - Yannick Stade
AU - Andreas Fyrillas
AU - Jean Senellart
AU - Lukas Burgholzer
AU - Robert Wille
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/11
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.13379
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.13379
AB - Linear Optical Quantum Computing (LOQC) is emerging as a promising technology in large-scale quantum computing. Corresponding devices, including linear optical circuits, are rapidly growing in size and fabrication precision. However, even with improved quality, the circuits still exhibit imperfections leading to photon loss or phase noise that vary across the circuit. Already small deficiencies can have a vast impact on both accuracy and efficiency. For computations that do not require the entire linear optical circuit, so-called subcircuits, one can choose where to perform the computation, opening optimization opportunities that are addressed by subcircuit compilation. Current compilers spread the subcircuit's computation across the entire circuit, connecting the same input and output ports, thereby failing to fully exploit the optimization opportunities. However, given the subcircuit's reduced size compared to the entire circuit, one can keep its implementation localized and intentionally route photons to connect good input and output ports. This, however, is a highly non-trivial task, as numerous options must be weighed against one another, and the quality of the solution is influenced by a wide range of hardware parameters. In particular, the reflectivities of imperfect beam splitters can lead to photon losses during routing, which must be traded off against losses at the input and output ports due to imperfect transmission rates. Since current compilers do not account for these effects, we propose the first efficient subcircuit compilation method that optimizes for the coincidence rate, the probability of successfully measuring all desired photons, by handling hardware imperfections. Our evaluations demonstrate significant improvement over existing methods in robustness against phase noise and significantly increased coincidence rates across all benchmarks of up to plus 33.2%.
ER -