Topological Obstructions in Quantum Adiabatic Algorithms

Abstract: We point out that, when an optimization problem has more than one solution, the quantum adiabatic algorithms (QAA) encounter topological obstructions leading to adiabatic spectral flows where spectral branches unavoidably traverse the spectral gap above the ground states of the quantum Hamiltonians. This raises serious doubts about the validity of the algorithms in such situations. However, using the Max-Cut problem as an example, we explain and demonstrate here that QAAs correctly detect all existing solutions in one single run. This newly discovered capacity of QAAs to simultaneously detect multiple solutions to an optimization problem can have an important impact on future developments of quantum variational algorithms