News

Vasileios Klimis is part of a team that have a paper accepted for the 19th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation in Daejeon, Republic of Korea to be held 18-22 May

It concerns Noise Fingerprints for Cross-Platform Quantum Simulator Discrepancy Analysis

Abstract

Before running code on a real, multi-million dollar quantum computer, engineers first test their algorithms on software simulators. These 'virtual labs' are essential for getting things right, but they have a hidden problem: different simulators, even when given identical instructions, can behave in subtly different ways due to how they model the "noise" inherent in quantum systems. This is like having two different brands of a scientific calculator giving different answers to the same complex equation, undermining the reliability and reproducibility of research.
Our work introduces a new paradigm to solve this problem: "noise fingerprinting". Just as a human fingerprint is a unique identifier, our method, SimShadow, generates a unique digital signature that reveals the precise character of a simulator's noise. To achieve this, we adapt a cutting-edge technique from quantum physics called "classical shadow tomography" -- a highly efficient method for taking detailed 'snapshots' of a quantum system's behaviour without needing to measure everything, which would be impossibly slow.
This 'fingerprint' acts as a definitive report card. By comparing the fingerprints of different simulators, we can for the first time see and quantify their hidden differences, turning an opaque problem into a measurable one. SimShadow brings a much-needed layer of scientific rigour and quality control to the world of quantum software, paving the way for more reliable, reproducible, and robust quantum technologies.

Reference

Bensoussan A., Chachkarova E., Even-Mendoza K., Fortz S., Klimis V., Reza Mousavi M. Noise Fingerprints for Cross-Platform Quantum Simulator Discrepancy Analysis. In proceedings of the 19th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation 2026 (ICST '26), Daejeon, Republic of Korea.