How to Incorporate External Fields in Analog Ising Machines

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: De Prins, Robbe, Lamers, Jacob, Bienstman, Peter, Van der Sande, Guy, Verschaffelt, Guy, Van Vaerenbergh, Thomas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866916735616024576
author De Prins, Robbe
Lamers, Jacob
Bienstman, Peter
Van der Sande, Guy
Verschaffelt, Guy
Van Vaerenbergh, Thomas
author_facet De Prins, Robbe
Lamers, Jacob
Bienstman, Peter
Van der Sande, Guy
Verschaffelt, Guy
Van Vaerenbergh, Thomas
contents Ising machines (IMs) are specialized devices designed to efficiently solve combinatorial optimization problems (COPs). They consist of artificial spins that evolve towards a low-energy configuration representing a problem's solution. Most realistic COPs require both spin-spin couplings and external fields. In IMs with analog spins, these interactions scale differently with the continuous spin amplitudes, leading to imbalances that affect performance. Various techniques have been proposed to mitigate this issue, but their performance has not been benchmarked. We address this gap through a numerical analysis. We evaluate the time-to-solution of these methods across three distinct problem classes with up to 500 spins. Our results show that the most effective way to incorporate external fields is through an approach where the spin interactions are proportional to the spin signs, rather than their continuous amplitudes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_08796
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How to Incorporate External Fields in Analog Ising Machines
De Prins, Robbe
Lamers, Jacob
Bienstman, Peter
Van der Sande, Guy
Verschaffelt, Guy
Van Vaerenbergh, Thomas
Statistical Mechanics
Emerging Technologies
Quantum Physics
Ising machines (IMs) are specialized devices designed to efficiently solve combinatorial optimization problems (COPs). They consist of artificial spins that evolve towards a low-energy configuration representing a problem's solution. Most realistic COPs require both spin-spin couplings and external fields. In IMs with analog spins, these interactions scale differently with the continuous spin amplitudes, leading to imbalances that affect performance. Various techniques have been proposed to mitigate this issue, but their performance has not been benchmarked. We address this gap through a numerical analysis. We evaluate the time-to-solution of these methods across three distinct problem classes with up to 500 spins. Our results show that the most effective way to incorporate external fields is through an approach where the spin interactions are proportional to the spin signs, rather than their continuous amplitudes.
title How to Incorporate External Fields in Analog Ising Machines
topic Statistical Mechanics
Emerging Technologies
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.08796