- Open Access
Efficient mapping of multiconstraint satisfaction problems to Rydberg platforms
Phys. Rev. Research 8, 043054 – Published 16 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6l5j-wkww
Abstract
We present a hardware-native gadget framework for solving constraint-satisfaction problems on Rydberg quantum computing architectures. Our approach introduces a compact gadget that enforces exactly-one constraints, ubiquitous in combinatorial optimization, directly through geometric embedding and blockade interactions. A key advantage of the gadget is its fixed, problem-size-independent detuning requirements: Enforcing constraints through blockade interactions eliminates the need for large penalty terms, thereby substantially reducing the detuning range compared to quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) formulations and improving experimental feasibility. By tailoring the construction to the geometric connectivity of Rydberg-atom arrays, the framework bypasses the all-to-all physical couplings often assumed in logical encodings. This enables embeddings compatible with planar layouts and avoids highly connected arrangements. We develop scalable implementations that reduce atom count and connectivity overhead while avoiding extensive classical preprocessing, making them compatible with near-term neutral-atom hardware. As illustrations, we apply our framework to the gate-assignment and -queen problems, highlighting its practicality, resource efficiency, and hardware compatibility. In these examples, we observe reductions in detuning range of up to and savings in atom count and connectivity overhead of up to compared to the QUBO method. These results establish a route toward implementing large-scale combinatorial optimization on Rydberg platforms beyond the limits of existing encodings.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
References (47)
- M. Marzec, Portfolio optimization: Applications in quantum computing, in Handbook of High-Frequency Trading and Modeling in Finance, edited by I. Florescu, M. C. Mariani, H. E. Stanley, and F. G. Viens (John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2016), Chap. 4, pp. 73–106.
- Combinatorial Optimization and Applications: A Tribute to Bernard Gendron, International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, edited by T. G. Crainic, M. Gendreau, and A. Frangioni (Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 2024).
- B. de Athayde Prata, An overview of industrial engineering and operations management over the first fifty years of Engineering Optimization, Eng. Optim. 57, 7 (2025).
- P. Crescenzi and V. Kann, A compendium of NP optimization problems, Technical Report No. SI/RR-95/02, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione, Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” 1995.
- S. Burer and A. N. Letchford, Non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear programming: A survey, Surv. Oper. Res. Manag. Sci. 17, 97 (2012).
- C. A. Floudas, I. G. Akrotirianakis, S. Caratzoulas, C. A. Meyer, and J. Kallrath, Global optimization in the 21st century: Advances and challenges, Comput. Chem. Eng. 29, 1185 (2005).
- L. Xu and L. Liberti, Relaxations for binary polynomial optimization via signed certificates, Math. Oper. Res. (2025), https://doi.org/10.1287/moor.2024.0534.
- A. Abbas, A. Ambainis, B. Augustino, A. Bärtschi, H. Buhrman, C. Coffrin, G. Cortiana, V. Dunjko, D. J. Egger, B. G. Elmegreen, et al., Challenges and opportunities in quantum optimization, Nat. Rev. Phys. 6, 718 (2024).
- D. Volpe, G. Orlandi, and G. Turvani, Improving the solving of optimization problems: A comprehensive review of quantum approaches, Quantum Rep. 7, 3 (2025).
- C. Grange, M. Poss, and E. Bourreau, An introduction to variational quantum algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems, Ann. Oper. Res. 343, 847 (2024).
- E. Farhi, J. Goldstone, and S. Gutmann, A quantum approximate optimization algorithm, arXiv:1411.4028.
- F. Koch, S. Panahiyan, R. Mukherjee, J. Doetsch, and D. Jaksch, Resource-efficient quantum optimization via higher-order encoding, EPJ Quantum Technol. 13, 59 (2026).
- M. Cerezo, A. Arrasmith, R. Babbush, S. C. Benjamin, S. Endo, K. Fujii, J. R. McClean, K. Mitarai, X. Yuan, L. Cincio, and P. J. Coles, Variational quantum algorithms, Nat. Rev. Phys. 3, 625 (2021).
- N. Sachdeva, G. S. Hartnett, S. Maity, S. Marsh, Y. Wang, A. Winick, R. Dougherty, D. Canuto, Y. Q. Chong, G. A. Cox, M. Hush, P. S. Mundada, C. D. B. Bentley, M. J. Biercuk, and Y. Baum, Quantum optimization using a 127-qubit gate-model IBM quantum computer can outperform quantum annealers for nontrivial binary optimization problems, New J. Phys. 28, 064506 (2026).
- F. A. Quinton, P. A. S. Myhr, M. Barani, P. Crespo del Granado, and H. Zhang, Quantum annealing applications, challenges and limitations for optimisation problems compared to classical solvers, Sci. Rep. 15, 12733 (2025).
- S. K. Sood, M. Singh, and M. Bhatia, Industrial progress with quantum algorithms: An in-depth review, J. Supercomput. 81, 1064 (2025).
- S. Ebadi, T. T. Wang, H. Levine, A. Keesling, G. Semeghini, A. Omran, D. Bluvstein, R. Samajdar, H. Pichler, W. W. Ho, S. Choi, S. Sachdev, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, Quantum phases of matter on a 256-atom programmable quantum simulator, Nature (London) 595, 227 (2021).
- A. Browaeys and T. Lahaye, Many-body physics with individually controlled Rydberg atoms, Nat. Phys. 16, 132 (2020).
- P. Scholl, M. Schuler, H. J. Williams, A. A. Eberharter, D. Barredo, K.-N. Schymik, V. Lienhard, L.-P. Henry, T. C. Lang, T. Lahaye, A. M. Läuchli, and A. Browaeys, Quantum simulation of 2D antiferromagnets with hundreds of Rydberg atoms, Nature (London) 595, 233 (2021).
- S. Euchner and I. Lesanovsky, Rydberg atom arrays as quantum simulators for molecular dynamics, Phys. Rev. Res. 7, L042009 (2025).
- S. de Léséleuc, V. Lienhard, P. Scholl, D. Barredo, S. Weber, N. Lang, H. P. Büchler, T. Lahaye, and A. Browaeys, Observation of a symmetry-protected topological phase of interacting bosons with Rydberg atoms, Science 365, 775 (2019).
- T. F. Maier, H. P. Büchler, and N. Lang, Topological order in symmetric blockade structures, PRX Quantum 6, 030340 (2025).
- H. P. Büchler, T. F. Maier, S. Fell, and N. Lang, Quantum doubles in symmetric blockade structures, Phys. Rev. B 114, 065113 (2026).
- L.-M. Steinert, P. Osterholz, R. Eberhard, L. Festa, N. Lorenz, Z. Chen, A. Trautmann, and C. Gross, Spatially tunable spin interactions in neutral atom arrays, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 243001 (2023).
- Z. Liu, Q. Ren, C. Nill, A. Cabot, W. Xia, Y. Tong, H. Wang, W. Yang, J. Xie, M. Jing, H. Zhang, L. Xiao, S. Jia, I. Lesanovsky, and L. Zhang, Time series learning in a many-body Rydberg system with emergent collective nonlinearity, Nat. Commun. 17, 10118 (2026).
- A. Hudomal, A. Daniel, T. S. do Espirito Santo, M. Kornjača, T. Macrì, J. C. Halimeh, G.-X. Su, A. Balaž, and Z. Papić, Ergodicity breaking meets criticality in a gauge-theory quantum simulator, arXiv:2512.23794.
- W. S. Martins, M. Hennrich, F. Schmidt-Kaler, and I. Lesanovsky, Quantum simulation with Rydberg ions in a Penning trap PRX Quantum 7, 033064 (2026).
- C. Kokail, P. E. Dolgirev, R. van Bijnen, D. Gonzalez-Cuadra, M. D. Lukin, and P. Zoller, Inverse quantum simulation for quantum material design, arXiv:2601.12239.
- H. Pichler, S.-T. Wang, L. Zhou, S. Choi, and M. D. Lukin, Quantum optimization for maximum independent set using Rydberg atom arrays, arXiv:1808.10816.
- S. Ebadi, A. Keesling, M. Cain, T. T. Wang, H. Levine, D. Bluvstein, G. Semeghini, A. Omran, J.-G. Liu, R. Samajdar, et al., Quantum optimization of maximum independent set using Rydberg atom arrays, Science 376, 1209 (2022).
- M. Lanthaler, C. Dlaska, K. Ender, and W. Lechner, Rydberg-blockade-based parity quantum optimization, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 220601 (2023).
- M.-T. Nguyen, J.-G. Liu, J. Wurtz, M. D. Lukin, S.-T. Wang, and H. Pichler, Quantum optimization with arbitrary connectivity using Rydberg atom arrays, PRX Quantum 4, 010316 (2023).
- A. G. de Oliveira, E. Diamond-Hitchcock, D. M. Walker, M. T. Wells-Pestell, G. Pelegrí, C. J. Picken, G. P. A. Malcolm, A. J. Daley, J. Bass, and J. D. Pritchard, Demonstration of weighted-graph optimization on a Rydberg-atom array using local light shifts, PRX Quantum 6, 010301 (2025).
- L. Bombieri, Z. Zeng, R. Tricarico, R. Lin, S. Notarnicola, M. Cain, M. D. Lukin, and H. Pichler, Quantum adiabatic optimization with Rydberg arrays: Localization phenomena and encoding strategies, PRX Quantum 6, 020306 (2025).
- M. J. A. Schuetz, R. S. Andrist, G. Salton, R. Yalovetzky, R. Raymond, Y. Sun, A. Acharya, S. Chakrabarti, M. Pistoia, and H. G. Katzgraber, Quantum compilation toolkit for Rydberg atom arrays with implications for problem hardness and quantum speedups, Phys. Rev. Res. 7, 033107 (2025).
- D. Guidobene and G. Cera, Improved dynamics for the maximum common subgraph problem, arXiv:2403.08703.
- J. Hartmanis, Computers and intractability: A guide to the theory of NP-completeness (Michael R. Garey and David S. Johnson), SIAM Rev. 24, 90 (1982).
- S. K. Barik, A. Thakur, Y. Jindal, S. B. S, and S. Roy, Quantum technologies with Rydberg atoms, Front. Quantum Sci. Technol. 3, 1426216 (2024).
- S. R. Cohen and J. D. Thompson, Quantum computing with circular Rydberg atoms, PRX Quantum 2, 030322 (2021).
- K. Goswami, R. Mukherjee, H. Ott, and P. Schmelcher, Solving optimization problems with local light-shift encoding on Rydberg quantum annealers, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 023031 (2024).
- R. Gloeckner, S. Panahiyan, F. Koch, D. Jaksch, and J. Doetsch, Publication data accompanying the paper “Efficient mapping of multiconstraint satisfaction problems to Rydberg platforms” [Dataset], Research Data Repository of the University of Hamburg, 2026, https://www.fdr.uni-hamburg.de/record/19223.
- I. P. Gent, C. A. Jefferson, and P. W. Nightingale, Complexity of -queens completion, J. Artif. Intell. Res. 59, 815 (2017).
- V. Torggler, P. Aumann, H. Ritsch, and W. Lechner, A quantum -queens solver, Quantum 3, 149 (2019).
- C. de Correc, T. Ayral, and C. Bertrand, Approximate combinatorial optimization with Rydberg atoms: The barrier of interpretability, Phys. Rev. A 112, 042441 (2025).
- M. Garrigues, V. Onofre, W. Coelho, and S. Acheche, A scalable heuristic for molecular docking on neutral-atom quantum processors, arXiv:2508.18147.
- M. D’Arcangelo, L.-P. Henry, L. Henriet, D. Loco, N. Gouraud, S. Angebault, J. Sueiro, J. Forêt, P. Monmarché, and J.-P. Piquemal, Leveraging analog quantum computing with neutral atoms for solvent configuration prediction in drug discovery, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 043020 (2024).
- K. Kitai, J. Guo, S. Ju, S. Tanaka, K. Tsuda, J. Shiomi, and R. Tamura, Designing metamaterials with quantum annealing and factorization machines, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 013319 (2020).