Assessment
An oral examination in two parts — a quantum circuit to analyse, then theoretical questions — one project, and a selection of projects from past editions.
How the exam works
Assessment is based on two components:
an individual oral examination covering the theoretical foundations and practical aspects of the course
The oral examination consists of two parts:
Part 1Quantum Circuit Analysis
Given a quantum circuit and an input state — which may be pure or mixed, entangled or separable — you will be asked to determine the overall state of the system at selected intermediate stages of the computation and at the circuit output. You will also be required to calculate the outcomes and corresponding probabilities of measurements performed either in the computational basis or in other specified bases.
Part 2Theoretical Questions
You will be asked questions concerning the theoretical topics covered in the course. The small selection of sample questions published on this website is representative of this part of the examination.
See the sample questionsa project carried out individually or in small groups, involving the implementation and analysis of a quantum algorithm, quantum communication protocol, or quantum networking application. When groups are formed, one project is assigned to each group and the oral examination is taken by the entire group together
Project topics are proposed by the Professor and typically require the use of Qiskit and/or QuantumSavory.jl. Through the project, students are expected to demonstrate their ability to translate theoretical concepts into working software, critically analyze the obtained results, and communicate their findings effectively.
The final grade is determined by evaluating both the student's understanding of the course material and the quality of the project work.
Oral · part 2
A small, representative sample of the questions that may be asked in the theoretical part of the oral examination — an indication of their scope and depth, not an exhaustive list.
Project rules
From assignment to presentation, what to expect.
Projects are assigned approximately two weeks before the end of the course and remain valid exclusively for the corresponding academic year. Students are therefore strongly discouraged from requesting a project after this deadline.
Students or groups who attend the course in one academic year but take the exam in a subsequent year are required to contact the professor to determine whether the project should be updated to remain aligned with the state of the art in the field.
In any case, the project must be developed using the platform presented during the most recent academic year: quantum software development platforms are not yet fully mature, so the course adopts the most advanced and stable platform available.
To allow the Examination Committee to conduct a thorough assessment, the project and the presentation slides must be submitted at least one week before the examination date. Once submitted, the material will be considered final and may not be modified in any way. Before the project presentation, which will take place in the classroom during the examination, the Committee will provide the students with a detailed review report on the submitted material.
Past projects
Projects handed in and reviewed in past editions, kept here as a reference for future students. Each project links to its GitHub repository.
a.y. 2025/2026
A teleportation service over a quantum network of N fully connected end nodes, whose virtual core delivers depolarized Bell pairs after an exponentially distributed delay. Requests are served in sequence, each teleporting an arbitrary qubit state. A discrete-event QuantumSavory.jl model and a gate-level Qiskit version both measure fidelity against the depolarization probability.
QiskitQuantumSavory.jl
View on GitHuba.y. 2025/2026
Single- and two-qubit quantum state tomography implemented in Qiskit and in QuantumSavory.jl: pure states sent through bit-flip, phase-flip, bit-phase-flip and depolarizing channels, reconstructed from Pauli measurements through the state’s Pauli-basis expansion. Fidelity is studied as a function of the number of shots and of the noise probability, with confidence intervals over repeated runs.
QiskitQuantumSavory.jl
View on GitHuba.y. 2025/2026
Discrete-event QuantumSavory.jl simulation of end-to-end entanglement distribution over a dumbbell network: depolarized Bell pairs, dephasing memories, entanglement swapping at the repeaters and Poisson application requests, measuring fidelity and throughput of the A–C and B–D pairs. A Qiskit circuit version compares pure-dephasing and amplitude-damping memories and was also run on IBM hardware.
QiskitQuantumSavory.jl
View on GitHuba.y. 2024/2025
Qiskit implementation of Ekert's E91 quantum key distribution protocol: key generation simulated under ideal conditions, channel noise and an active eavesdropper, with the CHSH inequality as the security check.
Qiskit
View on GitHub