Robin Kaarsgaard

I am associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at University of Southern Denmark. There, I am associated with ACP and the Centre for Quantum Mathematics.

My research is centred on quantum compilation: the mathematical and algorithmic techniques that bridge high-level quantum programs and fault-tolerant quantum hardware. I draw on ideas from programming languages, category theory, algebra, and quantum foundations.

News

Nov 05, 2026	Our paper A Complete Calculus for Hamiltonian Quantum Programming was accepted for POPL 2027 in Mexico City!
Oct 21, 2026	Member of the program committee for NPWP 2026 in Tartu, Estonia.
Sep 16, 2026	I gave an invited talk at the RubberDUQ Workshop in Edinburgh.
Sep 01, 2026	I will co-organise QPL 2027 to take place in Odense at the University of Southern Denmark.
May 05, 2026	Our paper Shadowy Institutions was accepted for WoLLIC 2026.

Selected Publications

LICS

One Rig to Control Them All

C. Heunen, R. Kaarsgaard, and L. Lemonnier

In 41st Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, 2026

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{onerig,
  author = {Heunen, C. and Kaarsgaard, R. and Lemonnier, L.},
  title = {One Rig to Control Them All},
  booktitle = {41st Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science},
  pages = {56:1--56:24},
  series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  volume = {380},
  editor = {Faggian, C. and Katoen, J.-P.},
  publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl},
  doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.LICS.2026.56},
  year = {2026},
}

PNAS

Free Quantum Computing

J. Carette, C. Heunen, R. Kaarsgaard, Neil J. Ross, and A. Sabry

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2026

Bib HTML PDF

@article{freeq,
  title = {Free Quantum Computing},
  author = {Carette, J. and Heunen, C. and Kaarsgaard, R. and Ross, Neil J. and Sabry, A.},
  journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
  volume = {123},
  number = {8},
  pages = {e2510881123},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1073/pnas.2510881123},
}

POPL

Hadamard-Pi: Equational Quantum Programming

W. Fang, C. Heunen, and R. Kaarsgaard

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 2026

Bib PDF

@article{hadamardpi,
  author = {Fang, W. and Heunen, C. and Kaarsgaard, R.},
  title = {Hadamard-Pi: Equational Quantum Programming},
  journal = {Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages},
  volume = {10},
  number = {POPL},
  pages = {117--143},
  year = {2026},
}

POPL

With a Few Square Roots, Quantum Computing is as Easy as Pi

J. Carette, C. Heunen, R. Kaarsgaard, and A. Sabry

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 2024

Bib PDF Code Slides

@article{sqrts,
  title = {With a Few Square Roots, Quantum Computing is as Easy as Pi},
  author = {Carette, J. and Heunen, C. and Kaarsgaard, R. and Sabry, A.},
  journal = {Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages},
  volume = {8},
  number = {POPL},
  pages = {546–574},
  year = {2024},
}

POPL

Quantum Information Effects

C. Heunen, and R. Kaarsgaard

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 2022

Bib HTML PDF Video Code Slides

@article{qinfeff,
  title = {Quantum Information Effects},
  author = {Heunen, C. and Kaarsgaard, R.},
  journal = {Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages},
  volume = {6},
  number = {POPL},
  pages = {1-27},
  year = {2022},
}