Skip to main contentIBM Quantum Documentation
This page is from an old version of Qiskit SDK and does not exist in the latest version. We recommend you migrate to the latest version. See the release notes for more information.

StateFn

class StateFn(primitive=None, coeff=1.0, is_measurement=False)

GitHub

Bases: qiskit.opflow.operator_base.OperatorBase

A class for representing state functions and measurements.

State functions are defined to be complex functions over a single binary string (as compared to an operator, which is defined as a function over two binary strings, or a function taking a binary function to another binary function). This function may be called by the eval() method.

Measurements are defined to be functionals over StateFns, taking them to real values. Generally, this real value is interpreted to represent the probability of some classical state (binary string) being observed from a probabilistic or quantum system represented by a StateFn. This leads to the equivalent definition, which is that a measurement m is a function over binary strings producing StateFns, such that the probability of measuring a given binary string b from a system with StateFn f is equal to the inner product between f and m(b).

NOTE: State functions here are not restricted to wave functions, as there is no requirement of normalization.

Parameters

  • primitive (Union[str, dict, Result, list, ndarray, Statevector, QuantumCircuit, Instruction, OperatorBase, None]) – The primitive which defines the behavior of the underlying State function.
  • coeff (Union[complex, ParameterExpression]) – A coefficient by which the state function is multiplied.
  • is_measurement (bool) – Whether the StateFn is a measurement operator

Methods Defined Here

add

StateFn.add(other)

Return Operator addition of self and other, overloaded by +.

Parameters

other (OperatorBase) – An OperatorBase with the same number of qubits as self, and in the same ‘Operator’, ‘State function’, or ‘Measurement’ category as self (i.e. the same type of underlying function).

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

An OperatorBase equivalent to the sum of self and other.

adjoint

StateFn.adjoint()

Return a new Operator equal to the Operator’s adjoint (conjugate transpose), overloaded by ~. For StateFns, this also turns the StateFn into a measurement.

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

An OperatorBase equivalent to the adjoint of self.

assign_parameters

StateFn.assign_parameters(param_dict)

Binds scalar values to any Terra Parameters in the coefficients or primitives of the Operator, or substitutes one Parameter for another. This method differs from Terra’s assign_parameters in that it also supports lists of values to assign for a give Parameter, in which case self will be copied for each parameterization in the binding list(s), and all the copies will be returned in an OpList. If lists of parameterizations are used, every Parameter in the param_dict must have the same length list of parameterizations.

Parameters

param_dict (dict) – The dictionary of Parameters to replace, and values or lists of values by which to replace them.

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

The OperatorBase with the Parameters in self replaced by the values or Parameters in param_dict. If param_dict contains parameterization lists, this OperatorBase is an OpList.

compose

StateFn.compose(other, permutation=None, front=False)

Composition (Linear algebra-style: A@B(x) = A(B(x))) is not well defined for states in the binary function model, but is well defined for measurements.

Parameters

  • other (OperatorBase) – The Operator to compose with self.
  • permutation (Optional[List[int]]) – List[int] which defines permutation on other operator.
  • front (bool) – If front==True, return other.compose(self).

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

An Operator equivalent to the function composition of self and other.

Raises

ValueError – If self is not a measurement, it cannot be composed from the right.

equals

StateFn.equals(other)

Evaluate Equality between Operators, overloaded by ==. Only returns True if self and other are of the same representation (e.g. a DictStateFn and CircuitStateFn will never be equal, even if their vector representations are equal), their underlying primitives are equal (this means for ListOps, OperatorStateFns, or EvolvedOps the equality is evaluated recursively downwards), and their coefficients are equal.

Parameters

other (OperatorBase) – The OperatorBase to compare to self.

Return type

bool

Returns

A bool equal to the equality of self and other.

eval

StateFn.eval(front=None)

Evaluate the Operator’s underlying function, either on a binary string or another Operator. A square binary Operator can be defined as a function taking a binary function to another binary function. This method returns the value of that function for a given StateFn or binary string. For example, op.eval('0110').eval('1110') can be seen as querying the Operator’s matrix representation by row 6 and column 14, and will return the complex value at those “indices.” Similarly for a StateFn, op.eval('1011') will return the complex value at row 11 of the vector representation of the StateFn, as all StateFns are defined to be evaluated from Zero implicitly (i.e. it is as if .eval('0000') is already called implicitly to always “indexing” from column 0).

If front is None, the matrix-representation of the operator is returned.

Parameters

front (Union[str, Dict[str, complex], ndarray, OperatorBase, Statevector, None]) – The bitstring, dict of bitstrings (with values being coefficients), or StateFn to evaluated by the Operator’s underlying function, or None.

Return type

Union[OperatorBase, complex]

Returns

The output of the Operator’s evaluation function. If self is a StateFn, the result is a float or complex. If self is an Operator (PrimitiveOp, ComposedOp, SummedOp, EvolvedOp, etc.), the result is a StateFn. If front is None, the matrix-representation of the operator is returned, which is a MatrixOp for the operators and a VectorStateFn for state-functions. If either self or front contain proper ListOps (not ListOp subclasses), the result is an n-dimensional list of complex or StateFn results, resulting from the recursive evaluation by each OperatorBase in the ListOps.

mul

StateFn.mul(scalar)

Returns the scalar multiplication of the Operator, overloaded by *, including support for Terra’s Parameters, which can be bound to values later (via bind_parameters).

Parameters

scalar (Union[complex, ParameterExpression]) – The real or complex scalar by which to multiply the Operator, or the ParameterExpression to serve as a placeholder for a scalar factor.

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

An OperatorBase equivalent to product of self and scalar.

permute

StateFn.permute(permutation)

Permute the qubits of the state function.

Parameters

permutation (List[int]) – A list defining where each qubit should be permuted. The qubit at index j of the circuit should be permuted to position permutation[j].

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

A new StateFn containing the permuted primitive.

power

StateFn.power(exponent)

Compose with Self Multiple Times, undefined for StateFns.

Parameters

exponent (int) – The number of times to compose self with self.

Raises

ValueError – This function is not defined for StateFns.

Return type

OperatorBase

primitive_strings

StateFn.primitive_strings()

Return a set of strings describing the primitives contained in the Operator. For example, {'QuantumCircuit', 'Pauli'}. For hierarchical Operators, such as ListOps, this can help illuminate the primitives represented in the various recursive levels, and therefore which conversions can be applied.

Return type

Set[str]

Returns

A set of strings describing the primitives contained within the Operator.

reduce

StateFn.reduce()

Try collapsing the Operator structure, usually after some type of conversion, e.g. trying to add Operators in a SummedOp or delete needless IGates in a CircuitOp. If no reduction is available, just returns self.

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

The reduced OperatorBase.

sample

StateFn.sample(shots=1024, massive=False, reverse_endianness=False)

Sample the state function as a normalized probability distribution. Returns dict of bitstrings in order of probability, with values being probability.

Parameters

  • shots (int) – The number of samples to take to approximate the State function.
  • massive (bool) – Whether to allow large conversions, e.g. creating a matrix representing over 16 qubits.
  • reverse_endianness (bool) – Whether to reverse the endianness of the bitstrings in the return dict to match Terra’s big-endianness.

Return type

Dict[str, float]

Returns

A dict containing pairs sampled strings from the State function and sampling frequency divided by shots.

tensor

StateFn.tensor(other)

Return tensor product between self and other, overloaded by ^. Note: You must be conscious of Qiskit’s big-endian bit printing convention. Meaning, Plus.tensor(Zero) produces a |+⟩ on qubit 0 and a |0⟩ on qubit 1, or |+⟩⨂|0⟩, but would produce a QuantumCircuit like

|0⟩– |+⟩–

Because Terra prints circuits and results with qubit 0 at the end of the string or circuit.

Parameters

other (OperatorBase) – The OperatorBase to tensor product with self.

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

An OperatorBase equivalent to the tensor product of self and other.

tensorpower

StateFn.tensorpower(other)

Return tensor product with self multiple times, overloaded by ^.

Parameters

other (int) – The int number of times to tensor product self with itself via tensorpower.

Return type

Union[OperatorBase, int]

Returns

An OperatorBase equivalent to the tensorpower of self by other.

to_circuit_op

StateFn.to_circuit_op()

Returns a CircuitOp equivalent to this Operator.

Return type

OperatorBase

to_density_matrix

StateFn.to_density_matrix(massive=False)

Return matrix representing product of StateFn evaluated on pairs of basis states. Overridden by child classes.

Parameters

massive (bool) – Whether to allow large conversions, e.g. creating a matrix representing over 16 qubits.

Return type

ndarray

Returns

The NumPy array representing the density matrix of the State function.

Raises

ValueError – If massive is set to False, and exponentially large computation is needed.

to_matrix

StateFn.to_matrix(massive=False)

Return NumPy representation of the Operator. Represents the evaluation of the Operator’s underlying function on every combination of basis binary strings. Warn if more than 16 qubits to force having to set massive=True if such a large vector is desired.

Return type

ndarray

Returns

The NumPy ndarray equivalent to this Operator.

to_matrix_op

StateFn.to_matrix_op(massive=False)

Return a VectorStateFn for this StateFn.

Parameters

massive (bool) – Whether to allow large conversions, e.g. creating a matrix representing over 16 qubits.

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

A VectorStateFn equivalent to self.

traverse

StateFn.traverse(convert_fn, coeff=None)

Apply the convert_fn to the internal primitive if the primitive is an Operator (as in the case of OperatorStateFn). Otherwise do nothing. Used by converters.

Parameters

  • convert_fn (Callable) – The function to apply to the internal OperatorBase.
  • coeff (Union[complex, ParameterExpression, None]) – A coefficient to multiply by after applying convert_fn. If it is None, self.coeff is used instead.

Return type

OperatorBase

Returns

The converted StateFn.


Attributes

INDENTATION

Default value: ' '

coeff

A coefficient by which the state function is multiplied.

Return type

Union[complex, ParameterExpression]

instance_id

Return the unique instance id.

Return type

int

is_measurement

Whether the StateFn object is a measurement Operator.

Return type

bool

num_qubits

Return type

int

parameters

primitive

The primitive which defines the behavior of the underlying State function.

settings

Return settings.

Return type

Dict

Was this page helpful?
Report a bug or request content on GitHub.