Quantum annealing optimization and geophysical inverse method
Meigen Zhang · Progress in geophysics · 2007
The idea of Quantum Annealing(QA),which is based on the mechanism of quantum transition tunneling effect and not same with the annealing theory of simulated thermal annealing,is a recent offspring of the celebrated simulated thermal annealing by Kirkpatrick.This paper,firstly,summarizes the basic differences between Quantum Annealing and Simulated Annealing;and then mainly addresses the attention to the practical developments of the application in optimization such as Ising spin glass,Traveling Salesman Problem,Boolean Satisfiability Problem and so on,discusses the details of the annealing process of Quantum Annealing and its compare with Simulated Annealing on test problems;subsequently,expatiates the geophysical inverse theory and method corresponding to Quantum Annealing,discusses the setting of parameters such as Temperature and Transverse field,compares the probabilities of being on configurations with different transverse fields and potential energies;finally briefly summarizes the prospects and the existent problems of using Quantum Annealing in geophysical inverse problem.