Different paths, same destination: Designing physics-inspired dynamical systems with engineered stability to minimize the Ising Hamiltonian
Phys. Rev. Applied 24, 024008 – Published 5 August, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/cdc9-y234
Abstract
This paper is a contribution to the Physical Review Applied collection titled Physics-Inspired Computing.
Oscillator Ising machines (OIMs) represent an exemplar case of using physics-inspired nonlinear dynamical systems to solve computationally challenging combinatorial optimization problems (COPs). The computational performance of such systems is highly sensitive to the underlying dynamical properties, the topology of the input graph, and their relative compatibility. In this work, we explore the concept of designing different dynamical systems that minimize the same objective function but exhibit drastically different dynamical properties. Our goal is to leverage this diversification in dynamics to reduce the sensitivity of the computational performance to the underlying graph and, subsequently, to enhance the overall effectiveness of such physics-based computational methods. To this end, we introduce the dynamical Ising machine (DIM), which, like the OIM, minimizes the Ising Hamiltonian but offers significantly different dynamical properties. We analyze the characteristic properties of the DIM and compare them with those of the OIM. We also show that the relative performance of each model is dependent on the input graph. Our work illustrates that using multiple dynamical systems with varying properties to solve the same COP enables an effective method that is less sensitive to the input graph while producing robust solutions.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Collections
This article appears in the following collection:
Collection on Physics-Inspired Computing
Physical Review Applied is pleased to present a Collection on Physics-Inspired Computing, highlighting the rapidly evolving field of energy-efficient computing techniques, from hardware technologies to algorithms, where physics inspiration serves as the crucial link. Contributions to this collection will be published throughout 2025. This Collection is being curated by Guest Editors Kerem Camsari and Supriyo Datta.
