A quantum computer emulator made by students at the University of Edinburgh.
by:
- Michael Chiang
- Gennaro Di Pietro
- Wiliam Hunter McNichols
- Christoph Messmer
This report is an accumulation of knowledge and results from the course 'Quantum Computing Project' at the University of Edinburgh. In this project we simulated the physics of a quantum computer by modeling the interactions of qubits. On top of this simulator, we ran a handful of algorithms to experiment with the possibilities of a quantum computer. Lastly, to aid in experimentation we built a custom Graphical User Interface to interact with the underlying simulator code.
In addition, we experimented with a few different implementations for qubits and compared their performance. For a full report on our findings and an overview on the underlying mathematics see our report here.
From jar.: Run the .jar file QCP_v2.jar located in the root directory
From eclipse: Run the main program located in QuantumGuiFrame as a Java Application (note: You may need to set import the JFreeChart .jar file to do this. See #11 for more information)
- Use the drop down menu to the left to choose between running Shor's or Grover's algorithm.
- Select the proper input value(s) for the simulation.
- Select the desired gate representation
- Press the start button
In order to start a Grover's simulation, import a txt file (via File->Open File) with comma separated numbers (i.e. 3,14,157,9,...) and a enter value to search for. Test data is provided in the 'tests/' directory.
To use Shor's input an integer between 2 to 1023 and it will be factorized.
Note: Shor's Algorithm will occasionally return obvious factors (i.e. the input number and 1) due to the inherent randomness of the algorithm. Run the simulation again if such results occur.
For best results use the 'Functional' gate representation. Sparse Matrix works slightly faster than Functional (and Dense Matrix) but can not run on as many qubits.
This program uses the JFreeChart open source library for it's graph outputs. See http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/ for more information.