Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally the ability of a quantum annealer to distinguish between sets of nonisomorphic graphs that share the same classical Ising spectrum. Utilizing the pause-and-quench features recently introduced into D-Wave quantum annealing processors, which allow the user to probe the quantum Hamiltonian realized in the middle of an anneal, we show that obtaining thermal averages of diagonal observables of “classically indistinguishable” nonisomorphic graphs encoded into transverse-field Ising Hamiltonians enable their discrimination. We discuss the significance of our results in the context of the graph isomorphism problem.

Date

2020

Authors

Zoe Gonzalez Izquierdo, Ruilin Zhou, Klas Markström, Itay Hen

Journal

Physical Review A

Volume

102

Issue

3

Pages

032622

Publisher

American Physical Society