Digitized Adiabatic Quantum Computing with a Superconducting Circuit

Zijun Chen
Enrique Solano
Brooks Campbell
Andrew Dunsworth
Lucas Lamata
Charles Neill
Jim Wenner
Antonio Mezzacapo
Ben Chiaro
Urtzi Las Heras
Alireza Shabani
Rami Barends
Amit Vainsencher
John Martinis
Josh Mutus
Anthony Megrant
Yu Chen
Nature, 534 (2016), pp. 222-226

Abstract

A major challenge in quantum computing is to solve general problems with limited physical hardware. Here, we implement digitized adiabatic quantum computing, combining the generality of the adiabatic algorithm with the universality of the digital approach, using a superconducting circuit with nine qubits. We probe the adiabatic evolutions, and quantify the success of the algorithm for random spin problems. We find that the system can approximate the solutions to both frustrated Ising problems and problems with more complex interactions, with a performance that is comparable. The presented approach is compatible with small-scale systems as well as future error-corrected quantum computers.