Towards a Quantum Software Modeling Language

Abstract

We set down the principles behind a modeling language for quantum software. We present a minimal set of extensions to the well-known Unified Modeling Language (UML) that allows it to effectively model quantum software. These extensions are separate and independent of UML as a whole. As such they can be used to extend any other software modeling language, or as a basis for a completely new language. We argue that these extensions are both necessary and sufficient to model, abstractly, any piece of quantum software. Finally, we provide a small set of examples that showcase the effectiveness of the extension set.

3 pages, 2 figures, accepted at the 1st International Workshop on Quantum Software Engineering (Q-SE 2020) at ICSE 2020 and to be published in the corresponding proceedings