Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2506.06502

Classical analog circuit emulation of quantum Grover search algorithm

Samuel Feldman, Hassam Ghazali, Andrey Rogachev

Published Jun 6, 2025• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We construct a completely analog framework that emulates universal quantum gates and quantum algorithms. It is based on electronic circuits made of operational amplifiers, resistors and capacitors. In these circuits, input and output lines represent the computational basis states (CBSs) and thus $2^n$ lines are required to represent $n$ qubits. An operation of the circuits is based on classical evolution and interference of complex amplitudes associated with each CBS. The framework can emulate entangled states and is free from decoherence, measurements are classical and do not collapse states. Similar to physical quantum computers, emulated quantum algorithms can be constructed as a sequence of the gates belonging to a universal set (phase shift, Hadamard, controlled-NOT), as a unitary matrix and as combinations of the two. Circuits representing the universal gates have been made and tested. We also have made a matrix-based emulator of a 3-qubit Grover search algorithm. We tested it by searching for one and two particular states with one and two iterations and found that its outputs accurately match predicted values. We anticipate that the emulators can work as sub-components of physical quantum computers. On their own, the emulators can be used for operations that require a few qubits or operations that can be split into independent (and perhaps weakly entangled) blocks of qubits.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2506.06502

Related papers

Signal-based classical emulation of a universal quantum computer

Brian R. La Cour, Granville E. Ott

In this paper we present a novel approach to emulating a universal quantum computer with a classical system, one that uses a signal of bounded duration and amplitude to represent an arbitrary quantum state. The signal may be of any modality (e.g., acoustic, electromagnetic, etc), but we focus our discussion here on electronic signals. Unitary gate operations are performed using analog electronic circuit devices, such as four-quadrant multipliers, operational amplifiers, and analog filters, although non-unitary operations may be performed as well. In this manner, the Hilbert space structure of the quantum state, as well as a universal set of gate operations, may be fully emulated classically. The required bandwidth scales exponentially with the number of qubits, however, thereby limiting the scalability of the approach, but the intrinsic parallelism, ease of construction, and classical robustness to decoherence may nevertheless lead to capabilities and efficiencies rivaling that of current high performance computers.

arXiv:2104.12027•New Journal of Physics•May 13, 2015•32 citations

Classical emulation of a quantum computer

Brian R. La Cour, Corey I. Ostrove, Granville E. Ott +2 more

This paper describes a novel approach to emulate a universal quantum computer with a wholly classical system, one that uses a signal of bounded duration and amplitude to represent an arbitrary quantum state. The signal may be of any modality (e.g. acoustic, electromagnetic, etc.) but this paper will focus on electronic signals. Individual qubits are represented by in-phase and quadrature sinusoidal signals, while unitary gate operations are performed using simple analog electronic circuit devices. In this manner, the Hilbert space structure of a multi-qubit quantum state, as well as a universal set of gate operations, may be fully emulated classically. Results from a programmable prototype system are presented and discussed.

arXiv:2105.00941•International Journal of Quantum Information•Apr 7, 2016•19 citations

Modelling of Grover’s quantum search algorithms: implementations of Simple quantum simulators on classical computers

Sergey Victorovich Ulyanov, Andrey G. Reshetnikov, Olga Tyatyushkina

Models of Grover’s search algorithm is reviewed to build the foundation for the other algorithms. Thereafter, some preliminary modifications of the original algorithms by others are stated, that increases the applicability of the search procedure. A general quantum computation on an isolated system can be represented by a unitary matrix. In order to execute such a computation on a quantum computer, it is common to decompose the unitary into a quantum circuit, i.e., a sequence of quantum gates that can be physically implemented on a given architecture. There are different universal gate sets for quantum computation. Here we choose the universal gate set consisting of CNOT and single-qubit gates. We measure the cost of a circuit by the number of CNOT gates as they are usually more difficult to implement than single qubit gates and since the number of single-qubit gates is bounded by about twice the number of CNOT’s.

System Analysis in Science and Education•Sep 30, 2020•4 citations

A SPICE-based Framework to Emulate Quantum Circuits with classical LC Resonators

Md Mazharul Islam, Shafayat Hossain, Ahmedullah Aziz

A circuit system consisting of LC-oscillators is mathematically shown to emulate quantum circuits. Here we develop a SPICE-based framework for emulating universal quantum gates (the phase-shift, the Hadamard, and the CNOT gates). To reconstruct each gate behavior, the inductors and capacitors are chosen and tuned precisely. Each quantum state is perfectly described by the phase and amplitude of each oscillator. In principle, our framework can simulate a quantum system with any arbitrary number of qubits since each gate process is perfectly achieved. Finally, we have simulated a quantum circuit with 3 qubits as input that consists of all the universal quantum gates. Our simulation result shows that our framework can classically emulate the result of any quantum circuit with an arbitrary number of qubits and quantum logic components.

International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED)•Apr 5, 2023•3 citations

Emulation of Quantum Algorithms Using CMOS Analog Circuits

Sharan Mourya, Brian R. La Cour, Bibhu Datta Sahoo

Quantum computers are regarded as the future of computing, as they are believed to be capable of solving extremely complex problems that are intractable on conventional digital computers. However, near-term quantum computers are prone to a plethora of noise sources that are difficult to mitigate, possibly limiting their scalability and precluding us from running any useful algorithms. Quantum emulation is an alternative approach that uses classical analog hardware to emulate the properties of superposition and entanglement, thereby mimicking quantum parallelism to attain similar speeds. By contrast, the use of classical digital hardware, such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), is less inefficient at emulating a quantum computer, as it does not take advantage of the fundamentally analog nature of quantum states. Consequently, this approach adds an inherent hardware overhead that also prevents scaling. In this work, an energy-efficient quantum emulator based on analog circuits realized in UMC 180-nm CMOS technology is proposed along with the design methodologies for a scalable computing architecture. A six-fold improvement in power consumption was observed over the FPGA-based approach for a ten-qubit emulation of Grover's search algorithm. The proposed emulator is also about 400 times faster than a Ryzen 5600x six-core processor performing a simulation of six-qubit Grover's search algorithm

IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering•Jan 1, 2023•15 citations

Parallel Quantum Computing Emulation

Brian R. La Cour, S. Andrew Lanham, Corey I. Ostrove

Quantum computers provide a fundamentally new computing paradigm that promises to revolutionize our ability to solve broad classes of problems. Surprisingly, the basic mathematical structures of gate-based quantum computing, such as unitary operations on a finite-dimensional Hilbert space, are not unique to quantum systems but may be found in certain classical systems as well. Previously, it has been shown that one can represent an arbitrary multi-qubit quantum state in terms of classical analog signals using nested quadrature amplitude modulated signals. Furthermore, using digitally controlled analog electronics one may manipulate these signals to perform quantum gate operations and thereby execute quantum algorithms. The computational capacity of a single signal is, however, limited by the required bandwidth, which scales exponentially with the number of qubits when represented using frequency-based encoding. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a method to extend this approach to multiple parallel signals. Doing so allows a larger quantum state to be emulated with the same gate time required for processing frequency-encoded signals. In the proposed representation, each doubling of the number of signals corresponds to an additional qubit in the spatial domain. Single quit gate operations are similarly extended so as to operate on qubits represented using either frequency-based or spatial encoding schemes. Furthermore, we describe a method to perform gate operations between pairs of qubits represented using frequency or spatial encoding or between frequency-based and spatially encoded qubits. Finally, we describe how this approach may be extended to represent qubits in the time domain as well.

arXiv:1908.06445•IEEE International Conference on Rebooting Computing (ICRC)•Nov 1, 2018•5 citations
We construct a completely analog framework that emulates universal quantum gates and quantum algorithms. It is based on electronic circuits made of operational amplifiers, resistors and capacitors. In these circuits, input and output lines represent the computational basis states (CBSs) and thus 2n2^n2n lines are required to represent nnn qubits. An operation of the circuits is based on classical evolution and interference of complex amplitudes associated with each CBS. The framework can emulate entangled states and is free from decoherence, measurements are classical and do not collapse states. Similar to physical quantum computers, emulated quantum algorithms can be constructed as a sequence of the gates belonging to a universal set (phase shift, Hadamard, controlled-NOT), as a unitary matrix and as combinations of the two. Circuits representing the universal gates have been made and tested. We also have made a matrix-based emulator of a 3-qubit Grover search algorithm. We tested it by searching for one and two particular states with one and two iterations and found that its outputs accurately match predicted values. We anticipate that the emulators can work as sub-components of physical quantum computers. On their own, the emulators can be used for operations that require a few qubits or operations that can be split into independent (and perhaps weakly entangled) blocks of qubits.
In this paper we present a novel approach to emulating a universal quantum computer with a classical system, one that uses a signal of bounded duration and amplitude to represent an arbitrary quantum state. The signal may be of any modality (e.g., acoustic, electromagnetic, etc), but we focus our discussion here on electronic signals. Unitary gate operations are performed using analog electronic circuit devices, such as four-quadrant multipliers, operational amplifiers, and analog filters, although non-unitary operations may be performed as well. In this manner, the Hilbert space structure of the quantum state, as well as a universal set of gate operations, may be fully emulated classically. The required bandwidth scales exponentially with the number of qubits, however, thereby limiting the scalability of the approach, but the intrinsic parallelism, ease of construction, and classical robustness to decoherence may nevertheless lead to capabilities and efficiencies rivaling that of current high performance computers.
This paper describes a novel approach to emulate a universal quantum computer with a wholly classical system, one that uses a signal of bounded duration and amplitude to represent an arbitrary quantum state. The signal may be of any modality (e.g. acoustic, electromagnetic, etc.) but this paper will focus on electronic signals. Individual qubits are represented by in-phase and quadrature sinusoidal signals, while unitary gate operations are performed using simple analog electronic circuit devices. In this manner, the Hilbert space structure of a multi-qubit quantum state, as well as a universal set of gate operations, may be fully emulated classically. Results from a programmable prototype system are presented and discussed.
Models of Grover’s search algorithm is reviewed to build the foundation for the other algorithms. Thereafter, some preliminary modifications of the original algorithms by others are stated, that increases the applicability of the search procedure. A general quantum computation on an isolated system can be represented by a unitary matrix. In order to execute such a computation on a quantum computer, it is common to decompose the unitary into a quantum circuit, i.e., a sequence of quantum gates that can be physically implemented on a given architecture. There are different universal gate sets for quantum computation. Here we choose the universal gate set consisting of CNOT and single-qubit gates. We measure the cost of a circuit by the number of CNOT gates as they are usually more difficult to implement than single qubit gates and since the number of single-qubit gates is bounded by about twice the number of CNOT’s.
A circuit system consisting of LC-oscillators is mathematically shown to emulate quantum circuits. Here we develop a SPICE-based framework for emulating universal quantum gates (the phase-shift, the Hadamard, and the CNOT gates). To reconstruct each gate behavior, the inductors and capacitors are chosen and tuned precisely. Each quantum state is perfectly described by the phase and amplitude of each oscillator. In principle, our framework can simulate a quantum system with any arbitrary number of qubits since each gate process is perfectly achieved. Finally, we have simulated a quantum circuit with 3 qubits as input that consists of all the universal quantum gates. Our simulation result shows that our framework can classically emulate the result of any quantum circuit with an arbitrary number of qubits and quantum logic components.
Quantum computers are regarded as the future of computing, as they are believed to be capable of solving extremely complex problems that are intractable on conventional digital computers. However, near-term quantum computers are prone to a plethora of noise sources that are difficult to mitigate, possibly limiting their scalability and precluding us from running any useful algorithms. Quantum emulation is an alternative approach that uses classical analog hardware to emulate the properties of superposition and entanglement, thereby mimicking quantum parallelism to attain similar speeds. By contrast, the use of classical digital hardware, such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), is less inefficient at emulating a quantum computer, as it does not take advantage of the fundamentally analog nature of quantum states. Consequently, this approach adds an inherent hardware overhead that also prevents scaling. In this work, an energy-efficient quantum emulator based on analog circuits realized in UMC 180-nm CMOS technology is proposed along with the design methodologies for a scalable computing architecture. A six-fold improvement in power consumption was observed over the FPGA-based approach for a ten-qubit emulation of Grover's search algorithm. The proposed emulator is also about 400 times faster than a Ryzen 5600x six-core processor performing a simulation of six-qubit Grover's search algorithm
Quantum computers provide a fundamentally new computing paradigm that promises to revolutionize our ability to solve broad classes of problems. Surprisingly, the basic mathematical structures of gate-based quantum computing, such as unitary operations on a finite-dimensional Hilbert space, are not unique to quantum systems but may be found in certain classical systems as well. Previously, it has been shown that one can represent an arbitrary multi-qubit quantum state in terms of classical analog signals using nested quadrature amplitude modulated signals. Furthermore, using digitally controlled analog electronics one may manipulate these signals to perform quantum gate operations and thereby execute quantum algorithms. The computational capacity of a single signal is, however, limited by the required bandwidth, which scales exponentially with the number of qubits when represented using frequency-based encoding. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a method to extend this approach to multiple parallel signals. Doing so allows a larger quantum state to be emulated with the same gate time required for processing frequency-encoded signals. In the proposed representation, each doubling of the number of signals corresponds to an additional qubit in the spatial domain. Single quit gate operations are similarly extended so as to operate on qubits represented using either frequency-based or spatial encoding schemes. Furthermore, we describe a method to perform gate operations between pairs of qubits represented using frequency or spatial encoding or between frequency-based and spatially encoded qubits. Finally, we describe how this approach may be extended to represent qubits in the time domain as well.