Digitized Adiabatic Quantum Computing with a Superconducting Circuit

Rami Barends
Alireza Shabani
Lucas Lamata
Antonio Mezzacapo
Urtzi Las Heras
Brooks Campbell
Yu Chen
Zijun Chen
Ben Chiaro
Andrew Dunsworth
Anthony Megrant
Josh Mutus
Charles Neill
Enrique Solano
Jim Wenner
Amit Vainsencher
John Martinis
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.