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Communications Physics

Vector Ising spin annealer for minimizing Ising Hamiltonians

James Cummins, Natalia G. Berloff

Published May 29, 2025• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Complex optimization problems can be solved via dedicated machines which encode the problem in the couplings of spin Hamiltonians. However, traditional physical minimizers often select excited states due to limitations in spin dynamics. We introduce the Vector Ising Spin Annealer (VISA), a framework in gain-based computing that leverages light-matter interactions. We show that VISA overcomes the limitations by enabling spins to operate within a three-dimensional space, thereby providing a robust solution for effectively minimizing Ising Hamiltonians. Our comparative analysis demonstrates VISA’s superior performance relative to conventional single-dimension spin optimizers, highlighting its capacity to surmount significant energy barriers in intricate landscapes. Detailed studies on cyclic and random graphs reveal VISA’s proficiency in dynamically evolving the energy landscape through time-dependent gain and penalty annealing, underscoring its potential in advancing the field of complex problem-solving in physics-inspired and physics-based computing.

DOI
10.1038/s42005-025-02145-7

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Abstract Complex optimization problems can be solved via dedicated machines which encode the problem in the couplings of spin Hamiltonians. However, traditional physical minimizers often select excited states due to limitations in spin dynamics. We introduce the Vector Ising Spin Annealer (VISA), a framework in gain-based computing that leverages light-matter interactions. We show that VISA overcomes the limitations by enabling spins to operate within a three-dimensional space, thereby providing a robust solution for effectively minimizing Ising Hamiltonians. Our comparative analysis demonstrates VISA’s superior performance relative to conventional single-dimension spin optimizers, highlighting its capacity to surmount significant energy barriers in intricate landscapes. Detailed studies on cyclic and random graphs reveal VISA’s proficiency in dynamically evolving the energy landscape through time-dependent gain and penalty annealing, underscoring its potential in advancing the field of complex problem-solving in physics-inspired and physics-based computing.
. We present the complex vector gain-based annealer (CVGA), an analog computing platform designed to overcome energy barriers in X Y Hamiltonians through a higher-dimensional representation. Traditional gain-based solvers using optical or photonic hardware typically represent each X Y spin with a single complex field. These solvers often struggle with large energy barriers in complex landscapes, leading to relaxation into excited states. CVGA addresses these limitations by using two complex fields to represent each X Y spin and dynamically evolving the energy landscape through time-dependent annealing. Operating in a higher-dimensional space, CVGA bridges energy barriers in this expanded space during the continuous phase evolution, thus avoiding entrapment in local minima. We introduce several graph structures that pose challenges for X Y minimization and use them to benchmark CVGA against single-dimension X Y solvers, highlighting the benefits of higher-dimensional operation.
. We present the complex vector gain-based annealer (CVGA), an analog computing platform designed to overcome energy barriers in X Y Hamiltonians through a higher-dimensional representation. Traditional gain-based solvers using optical or photonic hardware typically represent each X Y spin with a single complex field. These solvers often struggle with large energy barriers in complex landscapes, leading to relaxation into excited states. CVGA addresses these limitations by using two complex fields to represent each X Y spin and dynamically evolving the energy landscape through time-dependent annealing. Operating in a higher-dimensional space, CVGA bridges energy barriers in this expanded space during the continuous phase evolution, thus avoiding entrapment in local minima. We introduce several graph structures that pose challenges for X Y minimization and use them to benchmark CVGA against single-dimension X Y solvers, highlighting the benefits of higher-dimensional operation.
We investigate the minimization of Ising Hamiltonians, comparing the performance of gain-based computing paradigms based on the dynamics of semiclassical soft-spin models with quantum annealing. We systematically analyze how the energy landscape for the circulant couplings of a Möbius graph evolves with increased annealing parameters. Our findings indicate that these semiclassical models face challenges due to a widening dimensionality landscape. To counteract this issue, we introduce the manifold reduction method, which restricts the soft-spin amplitudes to a defined phase space region. Concurrently, quantum annealing demonstrates a natural capability to navigate the Ising Hamiltonian's energy landscape due to its operation within the comprehensive Hilbert space. Our study indicates that physics-inspired or physics-enhanced optimizers will likely benefit from combining classical and quantum annealing techniques.
Abstract Combinatorial optimization problems and ground state problems of spin glasses are crucial in various fields of science and technology. However, they often belong to the computational class of NP-hard, presenting significant computational challenges. Traditional algorithms inspired by statistical physics like simulated annealing have been widely adopted. Recently, advancements in Ising machines, such as quantum annealers and coherent Ising machines, offer new paradigms for solving these problems efficiently by embedding them into the analog evolution of nonlinear dynamical systems. However, existing dynamics-based algorithms often suffer from low convergence rates and local minima traps. In this work, we introduce the dual mean-field dynamics into Ising machines. The approach integrates the gradient force and the transverse force into the dynamics of Ising machines in solving combinatorial optimization problems, making it easier for the system to jump out of the local minimums and allowing the dynamics to explore wider in configuration space. We conduct extensive numerical experiments using the Sherrington–Kirkpatrick spin glass up to 10 000 spins and the maximum cut problems with the standard G-set benchmarks. The numerical results demonstrate that our dual mean-field dynamics approach enhances the performance of base Ising machines, providing a more effective solution for large-scale combinatorial optimization problems.
Many combinatorial optimization problems can be reformulated as finding the ground state of the Ising model. Existing Ising solvers are mostly inspired by simulated annealing. Although annealing techniques offer scalability, they lack convergence guarantees and are sensitive to the cooling schedule. We propose solving the Ising problem by relaxing the binary spins to continuous variables and introducing an attraction potential that steers the solution toward binary spin configurations. A key property of this potential is that its combination with the Ising energy produces a Hamiltonian that can be written as a difference of convex polynomials. This enables us to design efficient iterative algorithms that require a single matrix-vector multiplication per iteration and provide convergence guarantees. We implement our Ising solver on a wide range of GPU platforms, from edge devices to high-performance computing clusters, and demonstrate that it consistently outperforms existing solvers across problem sizes ranging from small (10310^3103 spins) to ultra-large (10810^8108 spins).
Recently, purpose-built analog hardware that can efficiently minimize the Ising energy and thereby solve a variety of combinatorial optimization problems has been receiving widespread attention. In this work, we show how multidimensional, vectorial degrees of freedom, that are either naturally present or can be artificially created in such hardware, could strengthen the capability to find optimal solutions to optimization problems. In order to achieve this, we introduce a simple model of soft vector spins that should be implementable on a variety of analog hardware platforms as well as three different dimensional annealing methods which harness the enlarged phase space of the vectorial degrees of freedom to minimize the Ising energy. We perform simulations on different benchmark problems and show that for all dimensional annealing methods we tested, vectorial degrees of freedom improve upon one-dimensional degrees of freedom when it comes to finding the ground state of the Ising model. In particular, we find that this advantage becomes most pronounced for d≳3d \gtrsim 3d≳3 dimensional degrees of freedom, with diminishing returns as the dimension is increased further. Our results could inspire new analog optimization hardware and algorithms that explicitly incorporate the advantage of vectorial degrees of freedom.