QCVis: A Quantum Circuit Visualization and Education Platform for Novices

Abstract

QCVis is a quantum circuit visualization and education platform for novices. The rapid growth of the quantum computing field surpasses the educational capacity of existing systems, which makes novices particularly in need of accessible tools. Often, novices struggle to understand two fundamental concepts: how quantum gates affect both qubit and quantum circuit state probabilities over time. QCVis contributes two novel visualizations to develop this intuition. One visualization teaches users about the relationship between gates and single qubit probabilities. This feature integrates stacked bar charts into the traditional quantum circuit diagram to display the state probability of a single qubit after each gate application. The other visualization provides insight into the intermediate steps that contribute to the final state probability distribution. The combination of a radial bar chart and a time slider helps users see the state probability of a quantum circuit at a user-specified execution step and observe how it changes over time. We evaluated the design of QCVis in a user study with novices, who successfully used our interface to understand these key quantum computing concepts.