Factoring 15 with a remote quantum computer: A complete guide for beginners

Abstract

We present, for the non-specialist, an experimental implementation of Shor’s factoring algorithm. We are unaware of any other single reference that explains, in a beginner-friendly way, complete circuits that implement Shor’s algorithm. We perform the experiment with IBM quantum processors, which are remotely accessible online for free. We reproducibly factor 15 with one 7-qubit processor (ibm_perth), while four other quantum processors exhibit excessive error.