AQC 2016 - Quantum Monte Carlo Simulations and Quantum Annealing

A Google TechTalk, June 27, 2016, presented by Guglielmo Mazzola (ETH Zurich) ABSTRACT: The only computational method capable to simulate Quantum Annealing (QA) for realistic and large scale problems is Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC). In this talk I will discuss if QMC, at its finite-temperature path-integral level, can be representative of what happens inside a real QA device and how physical intuition may guide us to devise “Quantum Inspired” algorithms which may outperform existing ones. To this end we study how QMC simulations mimic quantum tunneling in both spin and continuous space models and how the tunneling scales with the size of the system and the shapes of the energy barriers. Presented at the Adiabatic Quantum Computing Conference, June 26-29, 2016, at Google's Los Angeles office.