Quantum annealing: An introduction and new developments

TL;DR

This paper reviews quantum annealing fundamentals, explores its relation to classical methods, and introduces a novel quantum algorithm leveraging classical-quantum mapping and nonequilibrium physics for hard optimization problems.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of quantum annealing and proposes a new quantum algorithm based on classical-quantum mapping and the Jarzynski equality.

Findings

Preliminary results for the new algorithm show promise.

The relationship between quantum and classical annealing is clarified.

A novel approach for hard optimization problems is introduced.

Abstract

Quantum annealing is a generic algorithm using quantum-mechanical fluctuations to search for the solution of an optimization problem. The present paper first reviews the fundamentals of quantum annealing and then reports on preliminary results for an alternative method. The review part includes the relationship of quantum annealing with classical simulated annealing. We next propose a novel quantum algorithm which might be available for hard optimization problems by using a classical-quantum mapping as well as the Jarzynski equality introduced in nonequilibrium statistical physics.