MQT DD Package - A Package for Decision Diagrams Written in C++

A decision diagram package tailored to quantum computing developed by the Chair for Design Automation at the Technical University of Munich. The DD Package is part of the Munich Quantum Toolkit (MQT; formerly known as JKQ and developed by the Institute for Integrated Circuits at the Johannes Kepler University Linz).

The old version of this package which does not use namespaces or classes can be found in the branch non-oop.

For more information, please visit www.cda.cit.tum.de/research/quantum_dd/. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us via [email protected] or by creating an issue on GitHub.

Usage

This package caters primarily to our requirements regarding quantum-related functionality and, hence, may not be straightforward to use for other purposes.

A small example shows how to create set a single qubit in superposition.

#include <memory>
#include "dd/Package.hpp"

auto dd = std::make_unique<dd::Package>(1); // Create new package instance capable of handling a single qubit
auto zero_state = dd->makeZeroState(1) ; // zero_state = |0>

/* Creating a DD requires the following inputs:
 * 1. A 2x2 matrix describing a single-qubit operation (here: the Hadamard matrix)
 * 2. The number of qubits the DD will operate on (here: one qubit)
 * 3. The qubit the operation is applied to (here: q0)
 * (4. Controlled operations can be created by additionally specifying a list of control qubits before the target declaration)
 */
auto h_op = dd->makeGateDD(dd::Hmat, 1, 0);

// Multiplying the operation and the state results in a new state, here a single qubit in superposition
auto superposition = dd->multiply(h_op, zero_state);

For implementing more complex functionality which requires garbage collection, be advised that you have to do the reference counting by hand.

System Requirements

Building (and running) is continuously tested under Linux, MacOS, and Windows using the latest available system versions for GitHub Actions. However, the implementation should be compatible with any current C++ compiler supporting C++17 and a minimum CMake version of 3.19.

It is recommended (although not required) to have GraphViz installed for visualization purposes.

Setup, Build, and Run

To start off, clone this repository using

git clone --recurse-submodules -j8 https://github.com/cda-tum/dd_package

Note the --recurse-submodules flag. It is required to also clone all the required submodules. If you happen to forget passing the flag on your initial clone, you can initialize all the submodules by executing git submodule update --init --recursive in the main project directory.

The DD package is a header-only library, so there is no need to build it. However, we provide a CMake-based build system for testing and benchmarking purposes. Additionally, a dedicated CMake target MQT::DDPackage is provided to easily integrate the DD package into other CMake projects (see, e.g., https://github.com/cda-tum/qfr).

If you want to build the tests and benchmarks, you need to first configure the project using CMake. This can be done by calling

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_DD_PACKAGE_TESTS=ON

This tells CMake to search the current directory . (passed via -S) for a CMakeLists.txt file and process it into a directory build (passed via -B). The flag -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release tells CMake to configure a Release build (as opposed to, e.g., a Debug build), while the flag -DBUILD_DD_PACKAGE_TESTS=ON tells CMake to also include the tests in the build process.

After configuring with CMake, the project can be built by calling

 cmake --build build --config Release

This tries to build the project in the build directory (passed via --build). Some operating systems and developer environments explicitly require a configuration to be set, which is why the --config flag is also passed to the build command. The flag --parallel <NUMBER_OF_THREADS> may be added to trigger a parallel build.

This generates a number of executables in the build/test directory, including the test executable dd_package_test and the example executable dd_package_example.

Reference

If you use the DD package for your research, we will be thankful if you refer to it by citing the following publication:

@article{zulehner2019package,
    title={How to Efficiently Handle Complex Values? Implementing Decision Diagrams for Quantum Computing},
    author={Zulehner, Alwin and Hillmich, Stefan and Wille, Robert},
    journal={International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD)},
    year={2019}
}

Further Information

The following papers provide further information on different aspects of representing states and operation in the quantum realm.

• For the representation of unitary matrices and state vectors (with a particular focus on simulation and measurement): A. Zulehner and R. Wille. Advanced Simulation of Quantum Computations. IEEE Transactions on Computer Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), 2018.
• For the representation and manipulation of unitary matrices (including proof of canonicy, multi-qubit systems, etc): P. Niemann, R. Wille, D. M. Miller, M. A. Thornton, and R. Drechsler. QMDDs: Efficient Quantum Function Representation and Manipulation. IEEE Transactions on Computer Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), 35(1):86-99, 2016.
• The paper describing this decision diagram package (with a special focus on the representation of complex numbers): A. Zulehner, S. Hillmich and R. Wille. How to Efficiently Handle Complex Values? Implementing Decision Diagrams for Quantum Computing. The IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD). 2019