PsiAudit: An open-source toolkit for auditing symmetry-organised complexity in equivariant quantum neural networks

Parameterised quantum circuits are commonly assessed using measures such as expressibility, gradient behaviour, and entanglement. While useful, these measures do not indicate whether a circuit respects the symmetry it was designed to respect. This is especially important in equivariant quantum machine learning, where symmetry is central to the model. We introduce PsiAudit, an open-source Python toolkit for auditing symmetry-aware quantum neural network ansätze before training. Given an ansatz, a target symmetry, and a state trajectory, PsiAudit reports how the circuit occupies symmetry sectors, maintains coherence between them, fluctuates across the trajectory, and complies with the target symmetry. These outputs are combined into a configurable dashboard-style summary. PsiAudit supports phase, spin, and permutation symmetries, with the permutation audit implemented using Hamming-weight orbits. Tests on five ansatz families, across twenty random seeds and four to eight qubits, show, in the tested setting, that PsiAudit can identify inactive equivariant circuits, recover structure when multiple symmetry sectors are activated, and distinguish ansätze that appear similar under standard diagnostics. The toolkit also includes a unitary-level compliance check, reproducible examples, and a notebook for regenerating the reported results.

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Publication Details

Journal
PLoS ONE
Published
2026-07-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0353739
Primary Topic
Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

PsiAudit: An open-source toolkit for auditing symmetry-organised complexity in equivariant quantum neural networks

Newton Howard, Hassan Ugail
PLoS ONE
Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture
article

PsiAudit: An open-source toolkit for auditing symmetry-organised complexity in equivariant quantum neural networks

Newton Howard, Hassan Ugail
article en

Abstract

Parameterised quantum circuits are commonly assessed using measures such as expressibility, gradient behaviour, and entanglement. While useful, these measures do not indicate whether a circuit respects the symmetry it was designed to respect. This is especially important in equivariant quantum machine learning, where symmetry is central to the model. We introduce PsiAudit, an open-source Python toolkit for auditing symmetry-aware quantum neural network ansätze before training. Given an ansatz, a target symmetry, and a state trajectory, PsiAudit reports how the circuit occupies symmetry sectors, maintains coherence between them, fluctuates across the trajectory, and complies with the target symmetry. These outputs are combined into a configurable dashboard-style summary. PsiAudit supports phase, spin, and permutation symmetries, with the permutation audit implemented using Hamming-weight orbits. Tests on five ansatz families, across twenty random seeds and four to eight qubits, show, in the tested setting, that PsiAudit can identify inactive equivariant circuits, recover structure when multiple symmetry sectors are activated, and distinguish ansätze that appear similar under standard diagnostics. The toolkit also includes a unitary-level compliance check, reproducible examples, and a notebook for regenerating the reported results.

PLoS ONEVol. 21(7)
University of Bradford (GB), New York Institute of Technology (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 6%
Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture
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