2006/08/01 by Ralf Schützhold, Gernot Schaller · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.74.060304
arxiv published 2006/08/01 · arxiv updated 2006/08/15
In the continuum limit (large number of qubits), adiabatic quantum algorithms display a remarkable similarity to sweeps through quantum phase transitions. We find that transitions of second or higher order are advantageous in comparison to those of first order. With this insight, we propose a novel adiabatic quantum algorithm for the solution of 3-satisfiability (3-SAT) problems (exact cover), which is significantly faster than previous proposals according to numerical simulations (up to 20 qubits). These findings suggest that adiabatic quantum algorithms can solve NP-complete problems such as 3-SAT much faster than the Grover search routine (yielding a quadratic enhancement), possibly even with an exponential speed-up. PACS: 03.67.-a, 03.67.Lx, 73.43.Nq, 64.70.-p.