Quantum computers promise a qualitative speedup in solving a broad spectrum of practical optimization problems. The latter can be mapped onto the task of finding low-energy states of spin glasses, which is known to be exceedingly difficult. Using D-Wave's 5000-qubit quantum processor, we demonstrate that a recently proposed iterative cyclic quantum annealing algorithm can find deep low-energy states in record time. We also find intricate structures in a low-energy landscape of spin glasses, such as a power-law distribution of connected clusters with a small surface energy. These observations offer guidance for further improvement of the optimization algorithms.
Probing the lowest energy configuration of a complex system by quantum annealing was recently found to be more effective than its classical, thermal counterpart. Comparing classical and quantum Monte Carlo annealing protocols on the random two-dimensional Ising model we confirm the superiority of quantum annealing relative to classical annealing. We also propose a theory of quantum annealing, based on a cascade of Landau-Zener tunneling events. For both classical and quantum annealing, the residual energy after annealing is inversely proportional to a power of the logarithm of the annealing ti…
We study first order quantum phase transitions in mean-field spin glasses. We solve the quantum Random Energy Model using elementary methods and show that at the transition the eigenstate suddenly projects onto the unperturbed ground state and that the gap between the lowest states is exponentially small in the system size. We argue that this is a generic feature of all `Random First Order' models, which includes benchmarks such as random satisfiability. We introduce a two-time instanton to calculate this gap in general, and discuss the consequences for quantum annealing.
The strongest evidence for superiority of quantum annealing on spin glass problems has come from comparing simulated quantum annealing using quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods to simulated classical annealing [G. Santoro et al., Science 295, 2427(2002)]. Motivated by experiments on programmable quantum annealing devices we revisit the question of when quantum speedup may be expected for Ising spin glass problems. We find that even though a better scaling compared to simulated classical annealing can be achieved for QMC simulations, this advantage is due to time discretization and measurements w…
A technique inspired on quantum annealing is proposed in order to obtain the classical ground state of a spin-glass by tracking the full wavefunction of a given system within the subspace of matrix product states (MPS), using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG). The technique is exemplified within the problem of obtention of the classical ground state of an Ising spin glass on ladder geometries. Its performance is evaluated and related to the entanglement entropy.
Population annealing is an efficient sequential Monte Carlo algorithm for simulating equilibrium states of systems with rough free energy landscapes. The theory of population annealing is presented, and systematic and statistical errors are discussed. The behavior of the algorithm is studied in the context of large-scale simulations of the three-dimensional Ising spin glass and the performance of the algorithm is compared to parallel tempering. It is found that the two algorithms are similar in efficiency though with different strengths and weaknesses.
We propose a checking parameter utilizing the breaking of the Jarzynski equality in the simulated annealing method using the Monte Carlo method. This parameter is based on the Jarzynski equality. By using this parameter, to detect that the system is in global minima of the free energy under gradual temperature reduction is possible. Thus, by using this parameter, one is able to investigate the efficiency of annealing schedules. We apply this parameter to the +-J Ising spin glass model. The application to the Gaussian Ising spin glass model is also mentioned. We discuss that the breaking of the…
Population annealing is a Monte Carlo algorithm that marries features from simulated annealing and parallel tempering Monte Carlo. As such, it is ideal to overcome large energy barriers in the free-energy landscape while minimizing a Hamiltonian. Thus, population annealing Monte Carlo can be used as a heuristic to solve combinatorial optimization problems. We illustrate the capabilities of population annealing Monte Carlo by computing ground states of the three-dimensional Ising spin glass with Gaussian disorder, whilst comparing to simulated annealing and parallel tempering Monte Carlo. Our r…
We review our earlier studies on the order parameter distribution of the quantum Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model. Through Monte Carlo technique, we investigate the behavior of the order parameter distribution at finite temperatures. The zero temperature study of the spin glass order parameter distribution is made by the exact diagonalization method. We find in low-temperature (high-transverse-field) spin glass region, the tail (extended up to zero value of order parameter) and width of the order parameter distribution become zero in thermodynamic limit. Such observations clearly suggest the…
A partially annealed mean-field spin-glass model with a locally embedded pattern is studied. The model consists of two dynamical variables, spins and interactions, that are in contact with thermal baths at temperatures T_S and T_J, respectively. Unlike the quenched system, characteristic correlations among the interactions are induced by the partial annealing. The model exhibits three phases, which are paramagnetic, ferromagnetic and spin-glass phases. In the ferromagnetic phase, the embedded pattern is stably realized. The phase diagram depends significantly on the ratio of two temperatures n…
We show that the effective action of the quantum spherical spin glass is invariant under a generalized form of the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin(BRST) supersymmetry. The Ward identities associated to this invariance indicate that the spin glass order parameter must vanish, and as a result the annealed average is exact in this model. We present new results for for the free energy, entropy and specific heat. Due to quantum effects the entropy remains finite and the specific het vanishes at zero temperature. results for the phase diagram coincide with those obtained by different formalisms. At zero t…
An atomistic understanding of annealing embrittlement is a longstanding issue for metallic glasses, which is still lacking due to the insurmountable gap between the thermal history of atomic models and laboratory-made samples. Here, based on a thermal-cycling annealing method that can vary the effective quenching rate over ten orders of magnitude, we perform an atomistic study of the ductile-brittle transition in a ternary model metallic glass, which can be keyed to the annealing embrittlement in bulk metallic glasses. We reveal that thermal annealing can effectively obliterate thermally activ…
Glasses prepared by physical vapour deposition have been shown to be remarkably more stable than those prepared by standard cooling protocols, with properties that appear to be similar to systems aged for extremely long times. When subjected to a rapid rise in temperature, ultrastable glasses anneal towards the liquid in a qualitatively different manner than ordinary glasses, with the seeming competition of different timescales and lengthscales. We numerically reproduce the phenomenology of ultrastable glass annealing with a kinetically constrained model, a three dimensional East model with so…
We derive a number of exact relations between equilibrium and nonequilibrium quantities for spin glasses in external fields using the Jarzynski equality and gauge symmetry. For randomly-distributed longitudinal fields, a lower bound is established for the work done on the system in nonequilibrium processes, and identities are proven to relate equilibrium and nonequilibrium quantities. In the case of uniform transverse fields, identities are proven between physical quantities and exponentiated work done to the system at different parts of the phase diagram with the context of quantum annealing …
Quantum annealing promises to solve complex combinatorial optimization problems faster than current transistor-based computer technologies. Although to date only one commercially-available quantum annealer is procurable, one can already start to map out the application scope of these novel optimization machines. These mid-scale programmable analog special-purpose devices could, potentially, revolutionize optimization. However, their disruptive application domain remains to be found. While the commercial analog quantum optimization machine by D-Wave Systems Inc. already exceeds 1000 qubits, her…
The chapter starts with a historical summary of first attempts to optimize the spin glass Hamiltonian, comparing it to recent results on searching largest cliques in random graphs. Exact algorithms to find ground states in generic spin glass models are then explored in Section 1.2, while Section 1.3 is dedicated to the bidimensional case where polynomial algorithms exist and allow for the study of much larger systems. Finally Section 1.4 presents a summary of results for the assignment problem where the finite size corrections for the ground state can be studied in great detail.
We present an implementation of Quantum Annealing (QA) via lattice Green's function Monte Carlo (GFMC), focusing on its application to the Ising spin-glass in transverse field. In particular, we study whether or not such method is more effective than the Path-Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) based QA, as well as classical simulated annealing (CA), previously tested on the same optimization problem. We identify the issue of importance sampling, i.e., the necessity of possessing reasonably good (variational) trial wavefunctions, as the key point of the algorithm. We have considered two possible class…
We perform careful numerical simulations of slow Monte-Carlo annealings in the dense 3-body spin glass model and compare with the predictions from different theories: thresholds states, isocomplexity, following state. We conclude that while isocomplexity and following state both provide excellent agreement the numerical data, the influence of threshold states -- that is still the most commonly considered theory -- can be excluded from our data.
We apply a generalized Kibble-Zurek out-of-equilibrium scaling ansatz to simulated annealing when approaching the spin-glass transition at temperature $T=0$ of the two-dimensional Ising model with random $J= \pm 1$ couplings. Analyzing the spin-glass order parameter and the excess energy as functions of the system size and the annealing velocity in Monte Carlo simulations with Metropolis dynamics, we find scaling where the energy relaxes slower than the spin-glass order parameter, i.e., there are two different dynamic exponents. The values of the exponents relating the relaxation time scales t…
We study the problem to infer the ground state of a spin-glass Hamiltonian using data from another Hamiltonian with interactions disturbed by noise from the original Hamiltonian, motivated by the ground-state inference in quantum annealing on a noisy device. It is shown that the average Hamming distance between the inferred spin configuration and the true ground state is minimized when the temperature of the noisy system is kept at a finite value, and not at zero temperature. We present a spin-glass generalization of a well-established result that the ground state of a purely ferromagnetic Ham…
Recently, a programmable quantum annealing machine has been built that minimizes the cost function of hard optimization problems by adiabatically quenching quantum fluctuations. Tests performed by different research teams have shown that, indeed, the machine seems to exploit quantum effects. However experiments on a class of random-bond instances have not yet demonstrated an advantage over classical optimization algorithms on traditional computer hardware. Here we present evidence as to why this might be the case. These engineered quantum annealing machines effectively operate coupled to a dec…
Exploiting quantum properties to outperform classical ways of information-processing is an outstanding goal of modern physics. A promising route is quantum simulation, which aims at implementing relevant and computationally hard problems in controllable quantum systems. Here we demonstrate that in a trapped ion setup, with present day technology, it is possible to realize a spin model of the Mattis type that exhibits spin glass phases. Remarkably, our method produces the glassy behavior without the need for any disorder potential, just by controlling the detuning of the spin-phonon coupling. A…
We present several efficient implementations of the simulated annealing algorithm for Ising spin glasses on sparse graphs. In particular, we provide a generic code for any choice of couplings, an optimized code for bipartite graphs, and highly optimized implementations using multi-spin coding for graphs with small maximum degree and discrete couplings with a finite range. The latter codes achieve up to 50 spin flips per nanosecond on modern Intel CPUs. We also compare the performance of the codes to that of the special purpose D-Wave devices built for solving such Ising spin glass problems.
Yielding behavior in amorphous solids has been investigated in computer simulations employing uniform and cyclic shear deformation. Recent results characterise yielding as a discontinuous transition, with the degree of annealing of glasses being a significant parameter. Under uniform shear, discontinuous changes in stresses at yielding occur in the high annealing regime, separated from the poor annealing regime in which yielding is gradual. In cyclic shear simulations, relatively poorly annealed glasses become progressively better annealed as the yielding point is approached, with a relatively…
There has been considerable progress in the design and construction of quantum annealing devices. However, a conclusive detection of quantum speedup over traditional silicon-based machines remains elusive, despite multiple careful studies. In this work we outline strategies to design hard tunable benchmark instances based on insights from the study of spin glasses - the archetypal random benchmark problem for novel algorithms and optimization devices. We propose to complement head-to-head scaling studies that compare quantum annealing machines to state-of-the-art classical codes with an approa…
In a recent Letter [Europhys. Lett. 40, 429 (1997)], Hartmann presented results for the structure of the degenerate ground states of the three-dimensional +/- J spin glass model obtained using a genetic algorithm. In this Comment, I argue that the method does not produce the correct thermodynamic distribution of ground states and therefore gives erroneous results for the overlap distribution. I present results of simulated annealing calculations using different annealing rates for cubic lattices with N=4*4*4spins. The disorder-averaged overlap distribution exhibits a significant dependence on …
The population annealing algorithm introduced by Hukushima and Iba is described. Population annealing combines simulated annealing and Boltzmann weighted differential reproduction within a population of replicas to sample equilibrium states. Population annealing gives direct access to the free energy. It is shown that unbiased measurements of observables can be obtained by weighted averages over many runs with weight factors related to the free energy estimate from the run. Population annealing is well suited to parallelization and may be a useful alternative to parallel tempering for systems …
Recently, Heim, Ronnow, Isakov and Troyer [Science 348 (2015) 215] have reported that Monte Carlo simulations for the Ising spin glass model on the square lattice in the physically relevant continuous-imaginary-time limit do not show superiority of quantum annealing (QA) using transverse field against classical annealing (CA). Although the QA schedule that they had used has been using conventionally, however the QA schedule mathematically has no guarantee that the used schedule is the best QA schedule for performance of optimization. We propose a new QA schedule for studying transverse-field-b…
We introduce the transverse Ising model as a prototype for discussing quantum phase transition. Next we introduce Suzuki-Trotter formalism to show the correspondence between $d$-dimensional quantum system with a $(d+1)$-dimensional classical system. We then discuss transverse Ising spin glass models, namely S-K model, E-A model, and the $\pm J$ model with Ising spin in transverse field. We briefly discuss the mean field, exact diagonalization, and quantum Monte Carlo results for their phase diagrams. Next we discuss the question of replica symmetry restoration in quantum spin glasses (due to t…
Population annealing Monte Carlo is an efficient sequential algorithm for simulating k-local Boolean Hamiltonians. Because of its structure, the algorithm is inherently parallel and therefore well suited for large-scale simulations of computationally hard problems. Here we present various ways of optimizing population annealing Monte Carlo using 2-local spin-glass Hamiltonians as a case study. We demonstrate how the algorithm can be optimized from an implementation, algorithmic accelerator, as well as scalable parallelization points of view. This makes population annealing Monte Carlo perfectl…
The applications of nonequilbrium relations such as the Jarzynski equality and the fluctuation theorem to spin glasses are considered. The spin glass is a basic platform where we consider an application of an approximate solver of combinatorial optimization problems, simulated annealing. We find a novel relationship between an average through a nonequilibrium process where the temperature changes as in simulated annealing and a thermal average in equilibrium with different amounts of quenched randomness. The results shown in the present study may serve as an alternative way to overcome critica…
Ising spin Hamiltonians are often used to encode a computational problem in their ground states. Quantum Annealing (QA) computing searches for such a state by implementing a slow time-dependent evolution from an easy-to-prepare initial state to a low energy state of a target Ising Hamiltonian of quantum spins, $H_I$. Here, we point to the existence of an analytical solution for such a problem for an arbitrary $H_I$ beyond the adiabatic limit for QA. This solution provides insights into the accuracy of nonadiabatic computations. Our QA protocol in the pseudo-adiabatic regime leads to a monotoni…
We investigate the computational hardness of spin-glass instances on a square lattice, generated via a recently introduced tunable and scalable approach for planting solutions. The method relies on partitioning the problem graph into edge-disjoint subgraphs, and planting frustrated, elementary subproblems that share a common local ground state, which guarantees that the ground state of the entire problem is known a priori. Using population annealing Monte Carlo, we compare the typical hardness of problem classes over a large region of the multi-dimensional tuning parameter space. Our results s…
Quantum annealing is a generic solver of classical optimization problems that makes full use of quantum fluctuations. We consider work statistics given by a repetition of quantum annealing processes by employing the Jarzynski equality proposed in nonequilibrium statistical physics. In particular, we analyze the distribution of the work performed by a transverse field. A special symmetry, gauge symmetry, leads to a non-trivial relationship between quantum annealing toward different targets in the theory of spin glasses. We believe that our results will be a step toward an alternative realizatio…
Glassy behavior is one of the main open problems in condensed matter physics. In this thesis, we approach the problem by studying spin-glasses and colloids, using several complementary strategies. From the point of view of model building, we propose a new model, the hypercube model, which is mean-field but defined in a metric space. We show that, also in Mean Field, the spin-glass non-equilibrium dynamics is a domain-growth process very similar to its three-dimensional counterpart. We also consider spin-glasses in three spatial dimensions, focusing on temperature chaos. Thanks to the low-tempe…
We search for a Gardner transition in glassy glycerol, a standard molecular glass, measuring the third harmonics cubic susceptibility $χ_3^{(3)}$ from slightly below the usual glass transition temperature down to $10K$. According to the mean field picture, if local motion within the glass were becoming highly correlated due to the emergence of a Gardner phase then $χ_3^{(3)}$, which is analogous to the dynamical spin-glass susceptibility, should increase and diverge at the Gardner transition temperature $T_G$. We find instead that upon cooling $| χ_3^{(3)} |$ decreases by several orders of mag…
A quantum-thermal annealing method using a cluster-flip algorithm is studied in the two-dimensional spin-glass model. The temperature (T) and the transverse field (Gamma) are decreased simultaneously with the same rate along a linear path on the T-Gamma plane. We found that the additional pulse of the transverse field to the frozen local spins produces a good approximate solution with a low computational cost.
We report results of molecular dynamics simulations of a binary Lennard-Jones system at zero pressure in the undercooled liquid and glassy states. We first follow the evolution of diffusivity and dynamic heterogeneity with temperature and show their correlation. In a second step we follow the ageing of a quenched glass. As diffusivity decreases with ageing, heterogeneity increases. We conclude that the heterogeneity is a property of the inherent diffusion of the relaxed state. The variations with aging time can be explained by annealing of quenched defect structures. This annealing has the sam…
A new approach to combinatorial optimization based on systematic move-class deflation is proposed. The algorithm combines heuristics of genetic algorithms and simulated annealing, and is mainly entropy-driven. It is tested on two problems known to be NP hard, namely the problem of finding ground states of the SK spin--glass and of the 3-$D$ $\pm J$ spin-glass. The algorithm is sensitive to properties of phase spaces of complex systems other than those explored by simulated annealing, and it may therefore also be used as a diagnostic instrument. Moreover, dynamic freezing transitions, which are…
We consider the yielding behaviour of a model glass subjected to asymmetric cyclic shear deformation, wherein the applied strain varies between 0 and a maximum value $γ_{\rm max}$, and study its dependence on the degree of annealing of the glass and system size. The yielding behaviour of well annealed glasses (unlike poorly annealed glasses) display striking differences from the symmetric case, with the emergence of an intermediate strain regime with substantial plasticity but no yielding. The observed behaviour is satisfactorily captured by a recently proposed model. For larger system sizes, …
We study the effects of cyclic, athermal quasi-static shear on a model glass-forming system in three dimensions. We utilize the three available orthogonal shear planes, namely $XY, YZ \text{ and } XZ$ to better explore the energy landscape. Using measurements of the stroboscopic $(γ= 0)$ energy, we study the effects of using an orthogonal shear direction to perturb unidirectional steady-states. We find that that each sequence of the unidirectional protocol leads to compaction with the universal, $ΔE \sim N^{-1}$ behavior as a function of the number of cycles, $N$. Additionally we find that cyc…
There are many factors that influence the design of quantum annealing processing units. Here we address the issue of improving quantum annealing processing unit designs from the point of view of the critical behavior of spin glasses. It has been argued [Phys. Rev. X 4, 021008 (2014)] that among the most difficult Ising spin-glass ground-state problems are those related to lattices which exhibit a finite-temperature spin-glass transition. Here, we show that adding small-world couplers between qubits (spins) to the native quasi-planar quantum processing unit graph results in a topology where a d…
Different sets of metastable states can be reached in glassy systems below some transition temperature depending on initial conditions and details of the dynamics. This is investigated for the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass model with long ranged interactions. In particular, the time dependent local field distribution and energy are calculated for zero temperature. This is done for a system quenched to zero temperature, slow cooling or simulated annealing, a greedy algorithm and repeated tapping. Results are obtained from Monte-Carlo simulations and a Master-Fokker-Planck approach. A compa…
We applied a multicanonical algorithm (entropic sampling) to a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional Lennard-Jones system with quasicrystalline and glassy ground states. Focusing on the ability of the algorithm to locate low lying energy states, we compared the results of the multicanonical simulations with standard Monte Carlo simulated annealing and molecular dynamics methods. We find slight benefits to using entropic sampling in small systems (less than 80 particles), which disappear with larger systems. This is disappointing as the multicanonical methods are designed to surmount energy b…
We propose that the importance of the quantum annealing procedure to find the ground state of frustrated decorated bond systems where 'entropic slowing down' happens due to peculiar density of states. Here, we use the time dependent Schrödinger equation to analyze the real time dynamics of the process. It is found that the quantum annealing is very efficient comparing to the thermal annealing for searching the ground state of the systems. We analyze the mechanism of quantum annealing from a view point of adiabatic process.
At sufficiently low temperatures, the configurational phase space of a large spin-glass system breaks into many separated domains, each of which is referred to as a macroscopic state. The system is able to visit all spin configurations of the same macroscopic state, while it can not spontaneously jump between two different macroscopic states. Ergodicity of the whole configurational phase space of the system, however, can be recovered if a temperature-annealing process is repeated an infinite number of times. In a heating-annealing cycle, the environmental temperature is first elevated to a hig…
We show two fascinating topics lying between quantum information processing and statistical mechanics. First, we introduce an elaborated technique, the surface code, to prepare the particular quantum state with robustness against decoherence. Second, we show another interesting technique to employ quantum nature, quantum annealing. Through both of the topics, we would shed light on the birth of the interdisciplinary field between quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics.
