POPL 2026
Sun 11 - Sat 17 January 2026 Rennes, France
Wed 14 Jan 2026 14:50 - 15:15 at Dortoirs - Quantum 1 Chair(s): Ugo Dal Lago

This paper introduces a novel abstraction for programming quantum operations, specifically projective Cliffords, as functions over the qudit Pauli group. Generalizing the idea behind Pauli tableaux, we introduce a type system and lambda calculus for projective Cliffords called LambdaPC that captures well-formed Clifford operations via a Curry-Howard correspondence with a particular encoding of the Clifford and Pauli groups. In LambdaPC, users write functions that encode projective Cliffords $P \mapsto U P U^\dagger$, and such functions are compiled to circuits executable on modern quantum computers that transform quantum states $\ket{\varphi}$ into $U \ket{\varphi}$, up to a global phase. Importantly, the language captures not just qubit operations, but qudit operations for any dimension $d$.

Throughout the paper we explore what it means to program with projective Cliffords through a number of examples and a case study focusing on stabilizer error correcting codes.

Wed 14 Jan

Displayed time zone: Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris change

14:00 - 15:40
Quantum 1POPL at Dortoirs
Chair(s): Ugo Dal Lago University of Bologna; Centre Inria d’Université Côte d’Azur
14:00
25m
Talk
An Expressive Assertion Language for Quantum Programs
POPL
Bonan Su Tsinghua University, Yuan Feng Tsinghua University, Mingsheng Ying Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences; Tsinghua University, Li Zhou Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences
DOI
14:25
25m
Talk
Hadamard-Pi: Equational Quantum Programming
POPL
Wang Fang University of Edinburgh, Chris Heunen University of Edinburgh, Robin Kaarsgaard University of Southern Denmark
DOI
14:50
25m
Talk
Qudit Quantum Programming with Projective Cliffords
POPL
Jennifer Paykin University of Vermont, Sam Winnick Simon Fraser University; University of Waterloo
DOI
15:15
25m
Talk
RapunSL: Untangling Quantum Computing with Separation, Linear Combination and Mixing
POPL
Yusuke Matsushita Kyoto University, Kengo Hirata University of Edinburgh, Ryo Wakizaka Kyoto University, Emanuele D'Osualdo University of Konstanz
DOI Pre-print