On the Question of Ergodicity in Quantum Spin Glass Phase and Its Role in Quantum Annealing

Abstract

We first review, following our earlier studies, the critical behavior of the quantum Sherrington–Kirkpatrick (SK) model at finite as well as at zero temperatures. Through the analysis of the Binder cumulant we determined the entire phase diagram of the model and from the scaling analysis of the numerical data we obtained the correlation length exponent. For both the critical Binder cumulant and the correlation length exponent, we observed a crossover from classical- to quantum-fluctuation-dominated values at a finite temperature. We studied the behavior of the order parameter distribution of the model in the glass phase (at finite and zero temperatures). Along with a classical-fluctuation-dominated nonergodic region (where the replica symmetry is broken), we also found a quantum-fluctuation-dominated low-temperature ergodic region in the spin glass phase. In this quantum-fluctuation-dominated region, the order parameter distribution has a narrow peak around its most probable value, eventually becoming a delta function in the infinite-system-size limit (indicating replica symmetry restoration or ergodicity in the system). We also found that the annealing time (to reach a very low energy level of the classical SK model) becomes practically system-size-independent when the annealing paths pass through this ergodic region. In contrast, when such paths pass through the nonergodic region, the convergence time grows rapidly with the system size. We present a new study of the autocorrelation of the spins in both ergodic and nonergodic regions. We found a significant increase in the relaxation time (and also a change in the relaxation behavior) in the classical-fluctuation-dominated (nonergodic) region compared with that in the quantum-fluctuation-dominated (ergodic) region of the spin glass phase.