Parameter Setting for Quantum Annealers

TL;DR

This paper presents strategies for configuring quantum annealers to solve complex problems, providing guidelines for parameter settings and hardware adjustments to improve performance on non-native problem graphs.

Contribution

It introduces new parameter setting strategies and discusses hardware modification methods for better quantum annealer application to diverse problems.

Findings

Strategies generalize across problem classes

Guidelines improve parameter selection

Hardware adjustments enhance problem embedding

Abstract

We develop and apply several strategies for setting physical parameters on quantum annealers for application problems that do not fit natively on the hardware graph. The strategies are tested with a culled random set of mixed satisfiability problems, yielding results that generalize to guidelines regarding which parameter setting strategies to use for different classes of problems, and how to choose other necessary hardware quantities as well. Alternate methods of changing the hardware implementation of an application problem are also considered and their utility discussed.