Quantum Annealing of Hard Problems
Thomas Jörg, Florent Krzakala, Jorge Kurchan, Andrew Colin Maggs · Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement · 2010
Quantum annealing is analogous to simulated annealing with a tunneling mechanism substituting for thermal activation. Its performance has been tested in numerical simulation with mixed conclusions. There is a class of optimization problems for which the efficiency can be studied analytically using techniques based on the statistical mechanics of spin glasses.