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arXiv:1608.05105

Evolutionary Approaches to Optimization Problems in Chimera Topologies

Roberto Santana, Zhu, Zheng, Helmut G. Katzgraber

Published Aug 17, 2016• 0 citations
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Abstract

Chimera graphs define the topology of one of the first commercially available quantum computers. A variety of optimization problems have been mapped to this topology to evaluate the behavior of quantum enhanced optimization heuristics in relation to other optimizers, being able to efficiently solve problems classically to use them as benchmarks for quantum machines. In this paper we investigate for the first time the use of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) on Ising spin glass instances defined on the Chimera topology. Three genetic algorithms (GAs) and three estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) are evaluated over $1000$ hard instances of the Ising spin glass constructed from Sidon sets. We focus on determining whether the information about the topology of the graph can be used to improve the results of EAs and on identifying the characteristics of the Ising instances that influence the success rate of GAs and EDAs.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1608.05105

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Chimera graphs define the topology of one of the first commercially available quantum computers. A variety of optimization problems have been mapped to this topology to evaluate the behavior of quantum enhanced optimization heuristics in relation to other optimizers, being able to efficiently solve problems classically to use them as benchmarks for quantum machines. In this paper we investigate for the first time the use of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) on Ising spin glass instances defined on the Chimera topology. Three genetic algorithms (GAs) and three estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) are evaluated over 100010001000 hard instances of the Ising spin glass constructed from Sidon sets. We focus on determining whether the information about the topology of the graph can be used to improve the results of EAs and on identifying the characteristics of the Ising instances that influence the success rate of GAs and EDAs.
Chimera graphs define the topology of one of the first commercially available quantum computers. A variety of optimization problems have been mapped to this topology to evaluate the behavior of quantum enhanced optimization heuristics in relation to other optimizers, being able to efficiently solve problems classically to use them as benchmarks for quantum machines. In this paper we investigate for the first time the use of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) on Ising spin glass instances defined on the Chimera topology. Three genetic algorithms (GAs) and three estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) are evaluated over 1000 hard instances of the Ising spin glass constructed from Sidon sets. We focus on determining whether the information about the topology of the graph can be used to improve the results of EAs and on identifying which are the characteristics of the Ising instances that influence the success rate of GAs and EDAs. Chimera graphs define the topology of one of the first commercially available quantum computers. A variety of optimization problems have been mapped to this topology to evaluate the behavior of quantum enhanced optimization heuristics in relation to other optimizers, being able to efficiently solve problems classically to use them as benchmarks for quantum machines. In this paper we investigate for the first time the use of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) on Ising spin glass instances defined on the Chimera topology. Three genetic algorithms (GAs) and three estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) are evaluated over 1000 hard instances of the Ising spin glass constructed from Sidon sets. We focus on determining whether the information about the topology of the graph can be used to improve the results of EAs and on identifying the characteristics of the Ising instances that influence the success rate of GAs and EDAs.
Quantum Genetic Algorithms (QGAs) are emerging as a new class of algorithms that exploit the peculiarities of quantum computers to outperform classical evolutionary approaches in solving complex optimization problems. Despite the theoretical promises, their applicability has been strongly affected by the limitation of current noise-prone quantum hardware. It has only recently been demonstrated that acceptable levels of quantum noise can enhance the exploration capability of QGA in constrained optimization problems. The research corroborates the initial findings, providing further evidence of the efficacy of these algorithms by successfully resolving the NP-hard Ising Problem through the utilization of a QGA equipped with a quantum mating operator. The experimental results show that noisy simulations of QGA are capable of identifying better solutions than genetic algorithms that are equipped with state-of-the-art classical mating operators.
This paper explores the application of genetic algorithms (GAs) to optimize quantum circuits. The core claim is that GA can effectively improve the efficiency and accuracy of quantum computation by strategically modifying the topology and control parameters of quantum circuits. The proposed mechanism treats a quantum circuit as a genetic individual, leveraging the principles of genetic algorithms – including crossover, mutation, and selection – to iteratively enhance circuit performance. This approach represents a novel method for quantum circuit optimization, offering a potentially robust and adaptable solution compared to traditional optimization techniques. We present a framework for implementing this approach, focusing on the algorithmic steps and considerations for successful application. The exploration will cover the challenges and potential benefits of integrating evolutionary algorithms with the unique characteristics of quantum computation. ---
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The development in the field of quantum computing gives us a significant edge over classical computing in terms of time and efficiency.This is particularly useful for NP-hard problems such as graph layout problems.Since many real world problems are effectively solved by genetic algorithm (GA) and the performance of GA highly depends upon the setting of its parameters, therefore this paper focuses on a Quantum Inspired Genetic Algorithm (QIGA) and develops and evaluates adaptive strategies for the same.QIGA adapts ideas of Q-bits, superposition of Q-bits from quantum computing.The effectiveness and the applicability of adaptive QIGA is demonstrated by experimental results on the benchmark Knapsack, Maxcut and Onemax combinatorial optimization problems.The results show that adaptive QIGA is superior to QIGAs.
Finding the ground state of an Ising-spin glass on general graphs belongs to the class of NP-hard problems, widely believed to have no efficient polynomial-time algorithms for solving them. An approach developed in computer science for dealing with such problems is to devise approximation algorithms that run in polynomial time, and provide solutions with provable guarantees on their quality in terms of the optimal unknown solution. Recently, several algorithms for the Ising-spin glass problem on a graph that provide different approximation guarantees were introduced albeit without implementation. Also recently, D-wave company constructed a physical realization of an adiabatic quantum computer, and enabled researchers to access it. D-wave is particularly suited for computing an approximation for the ground state of an Ising spin glass on its chimera graph -- a graph with bounded degree. In this work, we compare the performance of a recently developed approximation algorithm for solving the Ising spin glass problem on graphs of bounded degree against the D-wave computer. We also compared a heuristic tailored specifically to handle the fixed D-wave chimera graph. D-wave computer was able to find better approximations to all the random instances we studied. Furthermore the convergence times of D-wave were also significantly better. These results indicate the merit of D-wave computer under certain specific instances. More broadly, our method is relevant to other performance comparison studies. We suggest that it is important to compare the performance of quantum computers not only against exact classical algorithms with exponential run-time scaling, but also to approximation algorithms with polynomial run-time scaling and a provable guarantee on performance.