# Coupling maps in quantum computation

Perhaps a bit naive question from my side, but I could not find any satisfactory answer elsewhere:

What exactly are the coupling maps in quantum computation and, more particularly, how do those maps translate to CouplingMap objects in qiskit?

Intuitively, I do get that it is a way to express a connections between the qubits, but are then those physical connections between the physical qubits or something else? Any explanation here would be welcome. If it helps in any way, for instance, the figure below is often used to illustrate coupling map for a particular qiskit hardware setup, which I unfortunately cannot read at this point:

Then its coupling map is: $$[[0, 1], [1, 0], [1, 2], [2, 1], [2, 3], [3, 2], [3, 4], [4, 3]]$$
• $$[0, 1], [1, 0]$$ indicate that $$0$$ and $$1$$ are connected.
• $$[1, 2], [2, 1]$$ indicate $$1$$ and $$2$$ are connected.
and so on. Note that you don't see $$[0,2],[2,0]$$ since $$0$$ and $$2$$ are not connected in the graph above.