Size-Stratified D-Wave Platform Feasibility for QUBO-Based Fault-Tree Minimum-Cardinality Cut-Set Recovery
Devin Peters · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
This paper evaluates D-Wave execution pathways for QUBO-based recovery of fault-tree minimum-cardinality cut sets using a balanced 80-instance benchmark cohort stratified into four problem-size groups of twenty instances each (16, 25, 33, and 42 QUBO variables). The experimental target is recovery of a minimum-cardinality cut set under a QUBO objective that minimizes the number of active basic events; the study does not enumerate the full minimal cut set family. Four execution arms operate on identical canonical payloads: a strict direct-QPU primary arm (Advantage2_system1, 1000 reads, 20 μs anneal time), a 5000-read direct-QPU replicate, a local classical simulated-annealing (SA) baseline at 1000 reads, and a hybrid BQM arm (LeapHybridSampler, 30 s). A deterministic fault-tree truth layer is used for per-sample validation; exhaustive QUBO ground-state enumeration via dimod.ExactSolver is performed only for the 16-variable stratum (20 of 20 confirmed), with the larger strata verified against deterministic fault-tree evaluation rather than exhaustive enumeration. Direct-QPU truth recovery degrades monotonically with problem size: zero-truth instance counts are 3, 10, 18, and 20 out of 20 under the 1000-read primary, and 0, 3, 11, and 19 under the 5000-read replicate. Classical SA at the same read budget recovers truth more often than direct QPU at every size (zero-truth counts 0, 1, 4, 13). Hybrid BQM recovered the canonical minimum-cardinality cut set on all 80 instances under the tested settings, including all 20 at 42 variables. This paper does not claim quantum advantage, computational speedup, replacement of classical cut-set algorithms, or full minimal-cut-set enumeration; it characterizes platform-level feasibility, minimum-cardinality correctness recovery, and size-stratified behavior across the four tested pathways. A device operation-timing analysis added in this revision shows that the fivefold read-budget increase corresponds to only a 4.18-fold increase in QPU access time, because programming is a fixed per-submission cost; it is reported as resource accounting and supports no time-to-solution, speedup, or cross-pathway equal-time claim.