Kyushu University · Computer Science
Professor Pengzhan Zhao's research lab specializes in formal methods and static analysis for quantum software, focusing on identifying and mitigating common programming errors in quantum programming languages like Qiskit. The lab develops practical tools and benchmarks—such as QChecker and Bugs4Q—to enhance the reliability, correctness, and testability of quantum programs through systematic static analysis and reproducible empirical evaluation. Their work bridges the gap between theoretical quantum computing and practical software engineering, aiming to support the growing need for robust quantum software development. The lab also emphasizes the creation of real-world benchmarks and reusable frameworks for evaluating debugging and testing tools in quantum computing.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Bug patterns are erroneous code idioms or bad coding practices that have been proved to fail time and time again, which are usually caused by the misunderstanding of a programming language's features, the use of erroneous design patterns, or simple mistakes sharing common behaviors. This paper identifies and categorizes some bug patterns in the quantum programming language Qiskit and briefly discusses how to eliminate or prevent those bug patterns. We take this research as the first step to prov
Realistic benchmarks of reproducible bugs and fixes are vital to good experimental evaluation of debugging and testing approaches. However, there is no suitable benchmark suite that can systematically evaluate the debugging and testing methods of quantum programs until now. This paper proposes Bugs4Q, a benchmark of thirty-six real, manually validated Qiskit bugs from four popular Qiskit elements (Terra, Aer, Ignis, and Aqua), supplemented with the test cases for reproducing buggy behaviors. Bug
Static analysis is the process of analyzing software code without executing the software. It can help find bugs and potential problems in software that may only appear at runtime. Although many static analysis tools have been developed for classical software, due to the nature of quantum programs, these existing tools are unsuitable for analyzing quantum programs. This paper presents QChecker, a static analysis tool that supports finding bugs in quantum programs in Qiskit. QChecker consists of t
Bug patterns are erroneous code idioms or bad coding practices that have been proved to fail time and time again, which are usually caused by the misunderstanding of a programming language's features, the use of erroneous design patterns, or simple mistakes sharing common behaviors. This paper identifies and categorizes some bug patterns in the quantum programming language Qiskit and briefly discusses how to eliminate or prevent those bug patterns. We take this research as the first step to prov
Realistic benchmarks of reproducible bugs and fixes are vital to good experimental evaluation of debugging and testing approaches. However, there is no suitable benchmark suite that can systematically evaluate the debugging and testing methods of quantum programs until now. This paper proposes Bugs4Q, a benchmark of thirty-six real, manually validated Qiskit bugs from four popular Qiskit elements (Terra, Aer, Ignis, and Aqua), supplemented with the test cases for reproducing buggy behaviors. Bug
Realistic benchmarks of reproducible bugs and fixes are vital to good experimental evaluation of debugging and testing approaches. Bugs4Q is a benchmark of forty-two real, manually validated Qiskit bugs from three popular platforms (GitHub, StackOverflow, and Stack Exchange) in programming, supplemented with test cases to reproduce buggy behaviors. Bugs4Q Database allows users to access the bugs we collected directly. Bugs4Q Framework provides interfaces for accessing the buggy and fixed version
Realistic benchmarks of reproducible bugs and fixes are vital to good experimental evaluation of debugging and testing approaches. Bugs4Q is a benchmark of forty-two real, manually validated Qiskit bugs from three popular platforms (GitHub, StackOverflow, and Stack Exchange) in programming, supplemented with test cases to reproduce buggy behaviors. Bugs4Q Database allows users to access the bugs we collected directly. Bugs4Q Framework provides interfaces for accessing the buggy and fixed version
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