Instantons in self-organizing logic gates

TL;DR

This paper explores how self-organizing logic gates utilize instantons—classical trajectories connecting critical points—to reliably reach correct solutions despite noise, advancing understanding of physics-inspired unconventional computing.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of instantons in self-organizing logic gates and demonstrates their role in achieving stable solutions even under high noise conditions.

Findings

Instantons connect critical points in the phase space of SOLGs.

Memory affects relaxation time but not the final solution.

Gates self-organize correctly even with large noise levels.

Abstract

Self-organizing logic is a recently-suggested framework that allows the solution of Boolean truth tables "in reverse," i.e., it is able to satisfy the logical proposition of gates regardless to which terminal(s) the truth value is assigned ("terminal-agnostic logic"). It can be realized if time non-locality (memory) is present. A practical realization of self-organizing logic gates (SOLGs) can be done by combining circuit elements with and without memory. By employing one such realization, we show, numerically, that SOLGs exploit elementary instantons to reach equilibrium points. Instantons are classical trajectories of the non-linear equations of motion describing SOLGs, and connect topologically distinct critical points in the phase space. By linear analysis at those points, we show that these instantons connect the initial critical point of the dynamics, with at least one unstable direction, directly to the final fixed point. We also show that the memory content of these gates only affects the relaxation time to reach the logically consistent solution. Finally, we demonstrate, by solving the corresponding stochastic differential equations, that since instantons connect critical points, noise and perturbations may change the instanton trajectory in the phase space, but not the initial and final critical points. Therefore, even for extremely large noise levels, the gates self-organize to the correct solution. Our work provides a physical understanding of, and can serve as an inspiration for, new models of bi-directional logic gates that are emerging as important tools in physics-inspired, unconventional computing.