title: Theory of quantum annealing of an Ising spin glass.
abstract: Probing the lowest energy configuration of a complex system by quantum annealing was recently found to be more effective than its classical, thermal counterpart. By comparing classical and quantum Monte Carlo annealing protocols on the two-dimensional random Ising model (a prototype spin glass), 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 time, but the quantum case has a larger power that makes it faster.
authors.affiliation: Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) and Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia (INFM) (Unità di Ricerca SISSA), I-34014 Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuseppe E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Santoro
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Martonák
authors.forename: Erio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tosatti
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Car