https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2015-02342-4
Review
Performance of quantum annealing in solving optimization problems: A review
Department of Liberal Arts, Saitama Medical University, Moroyama, Saitama 350-0495, Japan
a e-mail: sei01@saitama-med.ac.jp
Received: 4 October 2014
Revised: 16 December 2014
Published online: 5 February 2015
Quantum annealing is one of the optimization method for generic optimization problems. It uses quantum mechanics and is implemented by a quantum computer ideally. At the earlier stage, several numerical experiments using conventional computers have provided results showing that quantum annealing produces an answer faster than simulated annealing, a classical counterpart of quantum annealing. Later, theoretical and numerical studies have shown that there are drawbacks in quantum annealing. The power of quantum annealing is still an open problem. What makes quantum annealing a hot topic now is that a quantum computer based on quantum annealing is manufactured and commercialized by a Canadian company named D-Wave Systems. In the present article, we review the study of quantum annealing, focusing mainly on its power.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2015
