Finite temperature quantum annealing solving exponentially small gap problem with non-monotonic success probability.

ABSTRACT: Closed-system quantum annealing is expected to sometimes fail spectacularly in solving simple problems for which the gap becomes exponentially small in the problem size. Much less is known about whether this gap scaling also impedes open-system quantum annealing. Here, we study the performance of a quantum annealing processor in solving such a problem: a ferromagnetic chain with sectors of alternating coupling strength that is classically trivial but exhibits an exponentially decreasing gap in the sector size. The gap is several orders of magnitude smaller than the device temperature. Contrary to the closed-system expectation, the success probability rises for sufficiently large sector sizes. The success probability is strongly correlated with the number of thermally accessible excited sta

SUBMITTER: Mishra A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6060131 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature