book

Quantum Programming in Depth

by Mariia Mykhailova

July 2025

Intermediate to advanced

288 pages

9h 53m

English

Manning Publications

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1.1 Your second book on quantum computing: The prerequisites1.2 The hype and the promise: What kinds of problems can quantum computing solve?1.3 A peek inside the fridge: How does quantum computing work?1.3.1 Algorithms1.3.2 Hardware1.3.3 Software1.3.4 Quantum application software development workflow1.4 Why learn quantum computing?1.5 Learn by doing: Learning quantum computing through quantum programming with Qiskit and Q#1.6 Further reading1.6.1 Section 1.21.6.2 Section 1.31.7 Summary
2.1 Prepare a single-qubit state2.1.1 Math2.1.2 Qiskit2.1.3 Q#2.2 What does your solution do?2.2.1 Qiskit2.2.2 Q#2.3 Prepare a two-qubit state2.3.1 Refresher: controlled gates in Dirac notation2.3.2 Math2.3.3 Qiskit2.3.4 Q#2.4 Test your solution2.4.1 Qiskit2.4.2 Q#2.5 Prepare a multi-qubit state2.5.1 Math2.5.2 Qiskit2.5.3 Q#2.6 Further reading2.7 Going beyond2.8 Summary
3.1 Implement a single-qubit gate3.1.1 Math3.1.2 Qiskit3.1.3 Q#3.2 What does your solution do?3.2.1 Qiskit3.2.2 Q#3.3 Test your solution3.3.1 Qiskit3.3.2 Q#3.4 Matrix decomposition3.5 Implement a two-qubit block-diagonal unitary with \(2 \times 2\) blocks3.5.1 Refresher: controlled gates in matrix notation3.5.2 Math3.5.3 Qiskit3.5.4 Q#3.6 Implement a two-qubit CS unitary3.6.1 Math3.6.2 Qiskit3.6.3 Q#3.7 Implement a two-qubit block-antidiagonal unitary with \(2 \times 2\) blocks3.7.1 Math3.7.2 Qiskit3.7.3 Q#3.8 Implement a two-block block-diagonal unitary of arbitrary size3.8.1 Math3.8.2 Qiskit3.8.3 Q#3.9 Implement a CS unitary of arbitrary size3.9.1 Math3.9.2 Qiskit3.9.3 Q#3.10 Implement an arbitrary unitary of arbitrary size3.10.1 Math3.10.2 Qiskit3.11 Further reading3.12 Going beyond3.13 Summary
4.1 Read out information from a quantum system4.1.1 Math4.1.2 Qiskit4.1.3 Q#4.2 Distinguish superposition states that consist of distinct basis states4.2.1 Math4.2.2 Qiskit4.2.3 Q#4.3 Distinguish superposition states that consist of overlapping basis states4.3.1 Math4.3.2 Qiskit4.3.3 Q#4.4 Distinguish non-orthogonal states with minimum error4.4.1 Math4.4.2 Qiskit4.4.3 Q#4.5 Reconstruct the state from multiple copies4.5.1 Math4.5.2 Qiskit4.5.3 Q#4.6 Joint/parity measurements: extract partial information from a state4.6.1 Math4.6.2 Qiskit4.6.3 Q#4.7 Further reading4.8 Going beyond4.9 Summary
5.1 Distinguish unitaries5.1.1 Math5.1.2 X or Z?5.1.3 X or H?5.1.4 X or -X?5.1.5 Qiskit5.1.6 Q#5.2 Reconstruct the unitary5.2.1 Math5.2.2 Qiskit5.2.3 Q#5.3 Find eigenvalue that corresponds to the given eigenvector (phase estimation problem)5.3.1 Phase kickback5.3.2 Iterative phase estimation5.3.3 Adaptive phase estimation5.3.4 Quantum Fourier transform5.3.5 Quantum phase estimation5.3.6 Qiskit5.3.7 Q#5.4 Going beyond5.5 Summary
6.1 Reversible computing: mapping classical computation onto quantum6.2 Evaluate single-bit functions6.2.1 Math6.2.2 First attempt: in-place computation6.2.3 Second attempt: preserve the input as part of the output6.2.4 Third attempt: make the classical function completely reversible6.2.5 Qiskit6.2.6 Q#6.3 Test reversible computations6.3.1 Qiskit6.3.2 Q#6.4 Evaluate Boolean operations6.4.1 Math6.4.2 NOT6.4.3 XOR6.4.4 Equality6.4.5 AND and multi-bit AND6.4.6 OR and multi-bit OR6.4.7 Qiskit6.4.8 Q#6.5 Evaluate Boolean expressions6.5.1 Math6.5.2 Qiskit6.5.3 Q#6.6 Going beyond6.7 Summary
7.1 Quantum oracles7.1.1 Math7.1.2 Phase oracles7.1.3 Marking oracles7.1.4 Converting one type of oracles into another7.1.5 Qiskit7.1.6 Q#7.2 Grover’s search algorithm7.2.1 Definitions7.2.2 Math7.2.3 Qiskit7.2.4 Q#7.3 Going beyond7.4 Summary

8.1 Naive solution8.2 Encode constraints in the search space8.2.1 Math8.2.2 Qiskit8.2.3 Q#8.3 Change problem encoding8.3.1 Math8.3.2 Qiskit8.3.3 Q#8.4 Going beyond8.5 Summary
9.1 Choose the classical solution for comparison9.2 Performance comparisons: asymptotic vs practical9.3 Estimate performance of a quantum solution9.4 Azure Quantum Resource Estimator: an overview9.5 Solutions’ performance for the N queens puzzle9.6 Further reading9.7 Going beyond9.8 Summary
A.1 QiskitA.1.1 Run Qiskit onlineA.1.2 Install Qiskit locallyA.2 Q#A.2.1 Run Q# onlineA.2.2 Install Q# locallyA.3 pytestA.4 Getting the code

Content preview from Quantum Programming in Depth

9 Evaluate performance of quantum algorithms

This chapter covers

Comparing quantum algorithms with classical algorithms for the same problem
Factors that impact performance of quantum algorithms
Using Azure Quantum Resource Estimator to estimate performance of quantum programs on future quantum computers

In chapter 8, we came up with two quantum algorithms for solving the N queens puzzle — variants of Grover’s search that relied on different problem encoding and oracle implementation. How can we compare these two algorithms to decide which of them is better? And how can we figure out whether either of these algorithms can beat the classical solution to the N queens puzzle for large boards?

These questions arise whenever somebody comes ...