Scientific Publications

Alexander M. Whiticar, et al.

We report on measurements of flux and charge noise in an rf-SQUID flux qubit using macroscopic resonant tunneling (MRT). We measure rates of incoherent tunneling from the lowest energy state in the initial well to the ground and first excited states in the target well. The result of the measurement consists of two peaks. The first peak corresponds to tunneling to the ground state of the target well, and is dominated by flux noise. The second peak is due to tunneling to the excited state and is wider due to an intrawell relaxation process dominated by charge noise. We develop a theoretical model that allows us to extract information about flux and charge noise within one experimental setup. The model agrees very well with experimental data over a wide dynamic range and provides parameters that characterize charge and flux noise.

Anatoly Y. Smirnov, et al.

Macroscopic resonant tunneling (MRT) in flux qubits is an important experimental tool for extracting information about noise produced by a qubit's surroundings. Here we present a detailed derivation of the MRT signal in the RF-SQUID flux qubit allowing for effects of flux and charge fluctuations on the interwell and intrawell transitions in the system. Taking into consideration transitions between the ground state in the initial well and excited states in the target well enable us to characterize both flux and charge noise source affecting the operation of the flux qubit. The MRT peak is formed by the dominant noise source affecting specific transition, with flux noise determining the lineshape of the ground to ground tunneling, whereas charge noise reveals itself as additional broadening of the ground to excited peak.

King, A.D., Suzuki, S., Raymond, J. et al. Coherent quantum annealing in a programmable 2,000 qubit Ising chain. Nat. Phys. (2022)

Quantum simulation has emerged as a valuable arena for demonstrating and understanding the capabilities of near-term quantum computers. Quantum annealing has been successfully used in simulating a range of open quantum systems, both at equilibrium and out of equilibrium. However, in all previous experiments, annealing has been too slow to coherently simulate a closed quantum system, due to the onset of thermal effects from the environment. Here we demonstrate coherent evolution through a quantum phase transition in the paradigmatic setting of a one-dimensional transverse-field Ising chain, using up to 2,000 superconducting flux qubits in a programmable quantum annealer. In large systems, we observe the quantum Kibble–Zurek mechanism with theoretically predicted kink statistics, as well as characteristic positive kink–kink correlations, independent of temperature. In small chains, excitation statistics validate the picture of a Landau–Zener transition at a minimum gap. In both cases, the results are in quantitative agreement with analytical solutions to the closed-system quantum model. For slower anneals, we observe anti-Kibble–Zurek scaling in a crossover to the open quantum regime. The coherent dynamics of large-scale quantum annealers demonstrated here can be exploited to perform approximate quantum optimization, machine learning and simulation tasks.

T. Morstyn, "Annealing-based Quantum Computing for Combinatorial Optimal Power Flow," in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 2022,

This paper proposes the use of annealing-based quantum computing for solving combinatorial optimal power flow problems. Quantum annealers provide a physical computing platform which utilises quantum phase transitions to solve specific classes of combinatorial problems. These devices have seen rapid increases in scale and performance, and are now approaching the point where they could be valuable for industrial applications. This paper shows how an optimal power flow problem incorporating linear multiphase network modelling, discrete sources of energy flexibility, renewable generation placement/sizing and network upgrade decisions can be formulated as a quadratic unconstrained binary optimisation problem, which can be solved by quantum annealing. Case studies with these components integrated with the IEEE European Low Voltage Test Feeder are implemented using D-Wave Systems’ 5,760 qubit Advantage quantum processing unit and hybrid quantum-classical solver.

Jack Raymond, et al.

Quantum processing units (QPUs) executing annealing algorithms have shown promise in optimization and simulation applications. Hybrid algorithms are a natural bridge to additional applications of larger scale. We present a straightforward and effective method for solving larger-than-QPU lattice-structured Ising optimization problems. Performance is compared against simulated annealing with promising results, and improvement is shown as a function of the generation of D-Wave QPU used.

Marina Fernández-Campoamor, et al.

With the increase of intermittent renewable generation resources feeding into the electrical grid, Distribution System Operators (DSOs) must find ways to incorporate these new actors and adapt the grid to ensure stability and enable flexibility. Dividing the grid into logical clusters entails several organizational and technical benefits, helping overcome these challenges. However, finding the optimal grid partitioning remains a challenging task due to its complexity. At the same time, new technology has gained traction in the last decades for its promising speed-up potential in solving non-trivial combinatorial optimization problems: quantum computing. This work explores its application in Graph Partitioning using electrical modularity. We benchmarked several quantum annealing and hybrid methods on IEEE well-known test cases. The results obtained for the IEEE 14-bus test case show that quantum annealing DWaveSampler brings equal solutions or, for the optimal number partitions, a 1% improvement. For the more significant test cases, hybrid quantum annealing shows a relative error of less than 0.02% compared to the classical benchmark and for IEEE 118-bus test case shows time performance speed-up. The increment in performance would enable real-time planning and operations of electrical grids in real-time. This work intends to be the first step to showcase the potentials of quantum computing towards the modernization and adaption of electrical grids to the decentralized future of energy systems.

Ramin Ayanzadeh, et al.

We present multi-qubit correction (MQC) as a novel postprocessing method for quantum annealers that views the evolution in an open-system as a Gibbs sampler and reduces a set of excited states to a new synthetic state with lower energy value. After sampling from the ground state of a given (Ising) Hamiltonian, MQC compares pairs of excited states to recognize virtual tunnels—i.e., a group of qubits that changing their states simultaneously can result in a new state with lower energy value—and successively converges to the ground state. Experimental results using D-Wave 2000Q quantum annealers demonstrate that MQC finds samples with notably lower energy values and improves the reproducibility of results when compared to recent hardware/software advances in the realm of quantum annealing, such as spin-reversal transforms, classical postprocessing techniques, and increased inter-sample delay between successive measurements.

Matthew R.C. Fitzpatrick, et al.

We present an essentially exact numerical method for modeling flux qubit chains subject to charge and flux noise. We define an essentially exact method as one that introduces errors that are completely controlled such that they can be made arbitrarily small by tuning the simulation parameters. The method adopts the quasi-adiabatic path integral formalism to express the system's reduced density matrix as a time-discretized path integral, comprising a series of influence functionals that encode the non-Markovian dynamics of the system. We present a detailed derivation of the path integral expression for the system's reduced density matrix and describe in detail the tensor network algorithm used to evaluate the path integral expression. We have implemented our method in an open-sourced Python library called "spinbosonchain". When appropriate, we draw connections between concepts covered in this manuscript and the library's code.

Kelly Boothby, et al.

Early generations of superconducting quantum annealing processors have provided a valuable platform for studying the performance of a scalable quantum computing technology. These studies have directly informed our approach to the design of the next-generation processor. Our design priorities for this generation include an increase in per-qubit connectivity, a problem Hamiltonian energy scale similar to previous generations, reduced Hamiltonian specification errors, and an increase in the processor scale that also leaves programming and readout times fixed or reduced. Here we discuss the specific innovations that resulted in a processor architecture that satisfies these design priorities.

Andrew D. King, et al.

Artificial spin ices are frustrated spin systems that can be engineered, in which fine-tuning of geometry and topology has allowed the design and characterization of exotic emergent phenomena at the constituent level. Here, we report a realization of spin ice in a lattice of superconducting qubits. Unlike conventional artificial spin ice, our system is disordered by both quantum and thermal fluctuations. The ground state is classically described by the ice rule, and we achieved control over a fragile degeneracy point, leading to a Coulomb phase. The ability to pin individual spins allows us to demonstrate Gauss’s law for emergent effective monopoles in two dimensions. The demonstrated qubit control lays the groundwork for potential future study of topologically protected artificial quantum spin liquids.

Eleni Marina Lykiardopoulou, et al.

Nonstoquastic Hamiltonians are hard to simulate due to the sign problem in quantum Monte Carlo simulation. It is, however, unclear whether nonstoquasticity can lead to an advantage in quantum annealing. Here we show that YY interactions between the qubits make the adiabatic path during quantum annealing, and therefore the performance, dependent on spin-reversal transformations. With the right choice of spin-reversal transformation, a nonstoquastic Hamiltonian with YY interaction can outperform stoquastic Hamiltonians with similar parameters. We introduce an optimization protocol to determine the optimal transformation and discuss the effect of suboptimality.

Alexander Teplukhin, et al.

The possibility of using quantum computers for electronic structure calculations has opened up a promising avenue for computational chemistry. Towards this direction, numerous algorithmic advances have been made in the last five years. The potential of quantum annealers, which are the prototypes of adiabatic quantum computers, is yet to be fully explored. In this work, we demonstrate the use of a D-Wave quantum annealer for the calculation of excited electronic states of molecular systems. These simulations play an important role in a number of areas, such as photovoltaics, semiconductor technology and nanoscience. The excited states are treated using two methods, time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) and time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT), both within a commonly used Tamm-Dancoff approximation (TDA). The resulting TDA eigenvalue equations are solved on a D-Wave quantum annealer using the Quantum Annealer Eigensolver (QAE), developed previously. The method is shown to reproduce a typical basis set convergence on the example H2 molecule and is also applied to several other molecular species.

Addressing the world’s climate emergency is an uphill battle, requiring a multifaceted approach including optimal deployment of green-energy alternatives. Such undertakings often involve computationally-expensive optimization of black-box models in continuous parameter space. We observe good performance on the DW-2000Q QPU - even using default settings - and higher sensitivity of performance to a number of samples and annealing time for the Advantage QPU. These results are promising and potentially justify further investment in hardware, software, and optimization research, in particular, in the area of solvers for dense QUBOs.

Andrew D. King, et al.

The promise of quantum computing lies in harnessing programmable quantum devices for practical applications such as efficient simulation of quantum materials and condensed matter systems. One important task is the simulation of geometrically frustrated magnets in which topological phenomena can emerge from competition between quantum and thermal fluctuations. Here we report on experimental observations of equilibration in such simulations, measured on up to 1440 qubits with microsecond resolution. By initializing the system in a state with topological obstruction, we observe quantum annealing (QA) equilibration timescales in excess of one microsecond. Measurements indicate a dynamical advantage in the quantum simulation compared with spatially local update dynamics of path-integral Monte Carlo (PIMC). The advantage increases with both system size and inverse temperature, exceeding a million-fold speedup over an efficient CPU implementation. PIMC is a leading classical method for such simulations, and a scaling advantage of this type was recently shown to be impossible in certain restricted settings. This is therefore an important piece of experimental evidence that PIMC does not simulate QA dynamics even for sign-problem-free Hamiltonians, and that near-term quantum devices can be used to accelerate computational tasks of practical relevance.