Is Measurement Enough? Rethinking Output Validation in Quantum Program Testing

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16595v2
• Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2025 06:26:54 GMT
• Title: Is Measurement Enough? Rethinking Output Validation in Quantum Program Testing
• Authors: Jiaming Ye, Xiongfei Wu, Shangzhou Xia, Fuyuan Zhang, Jianjun Zhao,
• Abstract summary: Quantum program testing has emerged as a prominent research area within the scope of quantum software engineering.<n>Most existing methods rely on measurement-based validation in practice.<n>Due to the inherently probabilistic nature of quantum programs, measurement-based validation methods face significant limitations.
• Score: 4.83245022854922
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Abstract: As quantum computing continues to emerge, ensuring the quality of quantum programs has become increasingly critical. Quantum program testing has emerged as a prominent research area within the scope of quantum software engineering. While numerous approaches have been proposed to address quantum program quality assurance, our analysis reveals that most existing methods rely on measurement-based validation in practice. However, due to the inherently probabilistic nature of quantum programs, measurement-based validation methods face significant limitations. To investigate these limitations, we conducted an empirical study of recent research on quantum program testing, analyzing measurement-based validation methods in the literature. Our analysis categorizes existing measurement-based validation methods into two groups: distribution-level validation and output-value-level validation. We then compare measurement-based validation with statevector-based validation methods to evaluate their pros and cons. Our findings demonstrate that measurement-based validation is suitable for straightforward assessments, such as verifying the existence of specific output values, while statevector-based validation proves more effective for complicated tasks such as assessing the program behaviors.

Related papers

• Certification of quantum properties with imperfect measurements [0.0]
  We present a certification method for experimentally prepared quantum states that accounts for both shot noise and measurement imperfections in the data-acquisition stage.<n>We provide explicit prescriptions for quantifying the noise contribution from finite statistics and for estimating the effect of measurement imperfections.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-01-23T09:15:11Z)
• On the Feasibility of Quantum Unit Testing [7.96685560797073]
  This work presents a study on quantum-centric unit tests, comparing traditional statistical approaches with tests specifically designed for quantum circuits.<n>We investigate (a) each test's ability to detect subtle discrepancies between the expected and actual states of a quantum circuit, and (b) the number of measurements required to achieve high reliability.<n>The results demonstrate that quantum-centric tests provide clear advantages in terms of precision and efficiency, reducing both false positives and false negatives compared to statistical tests.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-07-23T06:05:24Z)
• Equivalence, Identity, and Unitarity Checking in Black-Box Testing of Quantum Programs [2.8611507672161265]
  Quantum programs exhibit inherent non-deterministic behavior, which poses significant challenges for error discovery compared to classical programs. We present three novel algorithms specifically designed to address the challenges of equivalence, identity, and unitarity checking in black-box testing of quantum programs.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-07-04T05:17:28Z)
• Testing Multi-Subroutine Quantum Programs: From Unit Testing to Integration Testing [2.8611507672161265]
  This paper addresses the specific testing requirements of multi-subroutine quantum programs. We focus on testing criteria and techniques based on the whole testing process perspective. We conduct comprehensive testing on typical quantum subroutines, including diverse mutants and randomized inputs.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-06-30T05:31:56Z)
• Robust and efficient verification of graph states in blind measurement-based quantum computation [52.70359447203418]
  Blind quantum computation (BQC) is a secure quantum computation method that protects the privacy of clients. It is crucial to verify whether the resource graph states are accurately prepared in the adversarial scenario. Here, we propose a robust and efficient protocol for verifying arbitrary graph states with any prime local dimension.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-05-18T06:24:45Z)
• Quantum Conformal Prediction for Reliable Uncertainty Quantification in Quantum Machine Learning [47.991114317813555]
  Quantum models implement implicit probabilistic predictors that produce multiple random decisions for each input through measurement shots. This paper proposes to leverage such randomness to define prediction sets for both classification and regression that provably capture the uncertainty of the model.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-04-06T22:05:21Z)
• Experimental Implementation of an Efficient Test of Quantumness [49.588006756321704]
  A test of quantumness is a protocol where a classical user issues challenges to a quantum device to determine if it exhibits non-classical behavior. Recent attempts to implement such tests on current quantum computers rely on either interactive challenges with efficient verification, or non-interactive challenges with inefficient (exponential time) verification.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-09-28T18:00:04Z)
• Improved Quantum Algorithms for Fidelity Estimation [77.34726150561087]
  We develop new and efficient quantum algorithms for fidelity estimation with provable performance guarantees. Our algorithms use advanced quantum linear algebra techniques, such as the quantum singular value transformation. We prove that fidelity estimation to any non-trivial constant additive accuracy is hard in general.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-03-30T02:02:16Z)
• Circuit Symmetry Verification Mitigates Quantum-Domain Impairments [69.33243249411113]
  We propose circuit-oriented symmetry verification that are capable of verifying the commutativity of quantum circuits without the knowledge of the quantum state. In particular, we propose the Fourier-temporal stabilizer (STS) technique, which generalizes the conventional quantum-domain formalism to circuit-oriented stabilizers.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-12-27T21:15:35Z)
• Statistical Methods for Quantum State Verification and Fidelity Estimation [2.9475513512647455]
  In the last few years several methods have been introduced which use advanced statistical methods to certify quantum states in a resource-efficient manner. We first explain how the verification and fidelity estimation of a quantum state can be discussed in the language of hypothesis testing. Then, we explain in detail various strategies for the verification of entangled states with local measurements or measurements assisted by local operations and classical communication.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-09-22T15:55:48Z)
• Sample-efficient device-independent quantum state verification and certification [68.8204255655161]
  Authentication of quantum sources is a crucial task in building reliable and efficient protocols for quantum-information processing. We develop a systematic approach to device-independent verification of quantum states free of IID assumptions in the finite copy regime. We show that device-independent verification can be performed with optimal sample efficiency.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-05-12T17:48:04Z)
• On the optimal certification of von Neumann measurements [55.41644538483948]
  certification of quantum measurements can be viewed as the extension of quantum hypotheses testing. We show the connection between the certification of quantum channels or von Neumann measurements and the notion of $q$-numerical range.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-09-14T22:38:23Z)
• Direct estimation of quantum coherence by collective measurements [54.97898890263183]
  We introduce a collective measurement scheme for estimating the amount of coherence in quantum states. Our scheme outperforms other estimation methods based on tomography or adaptive measurements. We show that our method is accessible with today's technology by implementing it experimentally with photons.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-01-06T03:50:42Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.