QISKit SDK 0.4.0

Changelog

• Job handling improvements.
  • Allow asynchronous job submission.
  • New JobProcessor class: utilizes concurrent.futures.
  • New QuantumJob class: job description.
• Modularize circuit "compilation".
  Takes quantum circuit and information about backend to transform
  circuit into one which can run on the backend.
• Standardize job description.
  All backends take QuantumJob objects which wraps qobj program description.
• Simplify addition of backends, where circuits are run/simulated.
  • qiskit.backends package added.
  • Real devices and simulators are considered "backends" which inherent from BaseBackend.
• Reorganize and improve Sphinx documentation.
• Improve unittest framework.
• Add tools for generating random circuits.
• New utilities for fermionic Hamiltonians (qiskit/tools/apps/fermion).
• New utilities for classical optimization and chemistry (qiskit/tools/apps/optimization).
• Randomized benchmarking data handling.
• Quantum tomography (qiskit/tools/qcvv).
  Added functions for generating, running and fitting process tomography experiments.
• Quantum information functions (qiskit/tools/qi).
  • Partial trace over subsystems of multi-partite vector.
  • Partial trace over subsystems of multi-partite matrix.
  • Flatten an operator to a vector in a specified basis.
  • Generate random unitary matrix.
  • Generate random density matrix.
  • Generate normally distributed complex matrix.
  • Generate random density matrix from Hilbert-Schmidt metric.
  • Generate random density matrix from the Bures metric.
  • Compute Shannon entropy of probability vector.
  • Compute von Neumann entropy of quantum state.
  • Compute mutual information of a bipartite state.
  • Compute the entanglement of formation of quantum state.
• Visualization improvements (qiskit/tools).
  • Wigner function representation.
  • Latex figure of circuit.
• Use python logging facility for info, warnings, etc.
• Auto-deployment of sphinx docs to github pages.
• Check IBMQuantumExperience version at runtime.
• Add QuantumProgram method to reconfigure already generated qobj.
• Add Japanese introductory documentation (doc/ja).
• Add Korean translation of readme (doc/ko).
• Add appveyor for continuous integration on Windows.
• Enable new IBM Q parameters for hub/group/project.
• Add QuantumProgram methods for destroying registers and circuits.
• Use Sympy for evaluating expressions.
• Add support for ibmqx_hpc_qasm_simulator backend.
• Add backend interface to Project Q C++ simulator.
  Requires installation of Project Q.
• Introduce InitializeGate class.
  Generates circuit which initializes qubits in arbitrary state.
• Introduce local_qiskit_simulator a C++ simulator with realistic noise.
  Requires C++ build environment for make-based build.
  Supported platforms: Linux and Mac.
• Introduce local_clifford_simulator a C++ Clifford simulator.
  Requires C++ build environment for make-based build.
  Supported platforms: Linux and Mac.

Bug Fixes

• Fix basis gates (#76).
• Enable QASM parser to work in multiuser environments.
• Correct operator precedence when parsing expressions (#190).
• Fix "math domain error" in mapping (#111, #151).

Backward-incompatible changes

• The standard extension for creating U base gates has been modified to be
  consistent with the rest of the gate APIs (see #203).
• The silent parameter has been removed from a number of QuantumProgram
  methods. The same behaviour can be achieved now by using the
  enable_logs() and disable_logs() methods, which use the standard
  Python logging.