10:40 AM - 11:10 AM
▲ [20a-B200-6] Quantum critical dynamics in a 5000-qubit programmable spin glass using a D-Wave quantum annealer
Keywords:quantum phase transition, spin glass, quantum annealing
Magnetic experiments on disordered alloys in the 1990s suggested that quantum annealing could find low-energy configurations of spin glasses faster than thermal annealing. Due to the importance of spin glasses in understanding phenomena of optimization and condensed matter, reproducing this success in a programmable quantum system has been a central goal in quantum optimization. Here we achieve this goal using a D-Wave Advantage superconducting quantum annealer. On small systems we find agreement with the Schrödinger equation, indicating well-controlled coherent annealing. On large 3D spin glasses, where Schrödinger evolution is computationally infeasible, we extract dynamic critical exponents that agree with previously predicted values. We find that the dynamics of quantum annealing are faster than simulated annealing and simulated quantum annealing, on systems of up to 5374 qubits. This demonstrates that the dynamical advantage from quantum fluctuations, previously seen in magnetism experiments, is a computational resource available to programmable quantum annealers.