Quantum Annealing and the D-Wave devices

Department Colloquia

Speaker: Matthias Troyer, ETH Zurich
Date & Time: January 9, 2014 16:00 - 17:00
Location: UBC, Hennings 201
Local Contact: Marcel Franz, Robert Raussendorf
Intended Audience: Undergraduate

Quantum annealing – a finite temperature version of the quantum adiabatic algorithm – combines the classical technology of slow thermal cooling with quantum mechanical tunneling, to try to bring a physical system faster towards its ground state. D-Wave systems has recently built and sold programmable devices that are designed to use this effect to find solutions to hard optimization problems. I will present results of experiments designed to shed light on crucial questions about these controversial devices: are these devices quantum or classical? Are they faster than classical devices? What is their potential?