Perceval

Through a simple object-oriented python API, Perceval provides tools for building a circuit with linear optics components, defining single-photon source, manipulating Fock states, running simulation, reproducing published experimental papers and experiment new generation of quantum algorithms. It aims to be a companion tool for developing photonics circuits

• while simulating on their design, modeling their ideal and real-life behaviour, and proposing a normalized interface
• to control them through the concept of backends.

Perceval has been developed as a complete toolkit for physicists and quantum computational students, researchers and practitioners.

Key Features

• Powerful Circuit designer making use of predefined components
• Simple python API and powerful simulation backends optimized in C
• Misc technical utilities to manipulate State Vector, Unitary Matrices, and circuit Parameters
• Transversal tools for visualization compatible with notebooks or local development environments
• Works numerically and symbolically
• Modular architecture welcoming contributions from the community

Installation

Perceval requires:

• Python 3.7 or above

We recommend installing it with pip:

pip install --upgrade pip
pip install perceval-quandela

or simply from github:

git clone https://github.com/quandela/Perceval
python setup.py install # [or 'develop' for developpers]

Running tests and benchmarks

Unit tests files are part of the repository in tests/ and can be run with:

pytest tests/

Benchmark tests for computing-intensive functions are in benchmark/ and can be run with:

pytest benchmark/benchmark_*.py

Comparison benchmarks for different platforms are also commit in .benchmarks/ - see pytest-benchmark documentation for more information.

Documentation and Forum

• The documentation
• The Community Forum