Simulating superconducting circuits with scqubits... and the impact of open-source software on quantum-science related research*

In recent years, open source software development has played a crucial role in fueling technological advances across a broad range of disciplines, including ones related to quantum information science (QIS). One important area of QIS research involves building software tools that allow for accurate modeling and simulations of early quantum computing devices. In this talk, besides giving a brief overview of the current landscape of such tools, I will discuss scqubits[1]: an open-source Python package for simulating and analyzing superconducting circuits - arguably one of the leading approaches to building early quantum computers. I will outline its core functionality, features, as well as limitations. I will also briefly present recently added facilities for arbitrary circuits analysis (along with coherence time estimates), and talk about our ongoing efforts related to performance enhancements as well as building tooling required to take advantage of GPU-based computing. Finally I will provide an outline of a couple real-world projects where the scqubits package was particularly useful. 

[1] https://github.com/scqubits/scqubits