Recent advances in quantum technology have led to the development and manufacturing of experimental programmable quantum annealing optimizers that contain hundreds of quantum bits. These optimizers, named `D-Wave chips, promise to solve practical opt
imization problems potentially faster than conventional `classical computers. Attempts to quantify the quantum nature of these chips have been met with both excitement and skepticism but have also brought up numerous fundamental questions pertaining to the distinguishability of quantum annealers from their classical thermal counterparts. Here, we propose a general method aimed at answering these, and apply it to experimentally study the D-Wave chip. Inspired by spin-glass theory, we generate optimization problems with a wide spectrum of `classical hardness, which we also define. By investigating the chips response to classical hardness, we surprisingly find that the chips performance scales unfavorably as compared to several analogous classical algorithms. We detect, quantify and discuss purely classical effects that possibly mask the quantum behavior of the chip.
The statics-dynamics correspondence in spin glasses relate non-equilibrium results on large samples (the experimental realm) with equilibrium quantities computed on small systems (the typical arena for theoretical computations). Here we employ static
s-dynamics equivalence to study the Ising spin-glass critical behavior in three dimensions. By means of Monte Carlo simulation, we follow the growth of the coherence length (the size of the glassy domains), on lattices too large to be thermalized. Thanks to the large coherence lengths we reach, we are able to obtain accurate results in excellent agreement with the best available equilibrium computations. To do so, we need to clarify the several physical meanings of the dynamic exponent close to the critical temperature.
