Customized annealing schedules*

In a typical quantum annealing protocol, the system starts with a transverse field Hamiltonian which is gradually turned off and replaced by a longitudinal Hamiltonian. The ground state of this longitudinal Hamiltonian contains the solution to the Ising problem of interest that it encodes. The probability of finding the system in that ground state may depend on how we make the transition from the transverse field to the longitudinal Hamiltonian. Therefore having precise control over these annealing schedules can be a powerful tool for increasing success probabilities.
In this talk, we show how superconducting circuits, in particular capacitively shunted flux qubits (CSFQs), can be used to construct quantum annealing systems by providing methods for mapping circuit flux biases to Ising spin coefficients. We then use this mapping to find customized annealing schedules: appropriate circuit control biases that yield any desired Ising schedule, while accounting for the physical limitations of the circuitry.