QuMuS: A scalable tool for quantum mutant testing on NISQ hardware

Quantum Mutation Testing (QMT) is a promising approach for assessing the correctness and robustness of quantum programs, but its adoption on real quantum hardware is severely constrained by the cost and execution time required to run large mutant sets on cloud-based Quantum Processing Units. This paper presents QuMuS, a scalable software tool that enables practical QMT on NISQ hardware by combining automated quantum circuit mutant generation with a multi-programmed scheduling strategy. QuMuS efficiently packs large collections of mutants into composite circuits for execution on real quantum devices and reconstructs individual results through an unscheduling process, significantly reducing operational overhead. The tool provides an end-to-end workflow supporting circuit definition, mutant generation, scheduling, execution, and result analysis, while abstracting provider-specific details and integrating with IBM Quantum and Amazon Braket. Experimental validation on real quantum processors using large mutant sets demonstrates execution time and cost reductions exceeding 90% compared to isolated executions, while preserving acceptable statistical fidelity under realistic noise conditions. • Scalable tool for Quantum Mutation Testing on real NISQ hardware. • Automated mutant generation with multi-programmed circuit scheduling. • Validated on large mutant sets using real quantum processors. • Confirms significant cost and time reduction while maintaining result reliability.