Realization Divergence in Multi-Provider Quantum Computing: A Pre-Registered Study of What Survives Measurement
A preprint defines and measures realization divergence, the difference between an identical source quantum circuit as written and as executed across different compilation and transpilation stacks. The authors argue this distance is rarely quantified and present a pre-registered multi-provider comparison of how circuits behave after vendor processing.
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What this could mean
- 0–2 yearsPlausible
This could enable near-term cross-provider circuit portability testing, where software stacks are checked for realization divergence against a reference circuit in continuous integration pipelines.
The study provides a named observable and pre-registered methodology. Existing quantum software stacks already expose post-transpilation circuit counts and gate decompositions, so adding divergence checks to regression suites is mostly integration work rather than new physics.
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