Improved time complexity for spintronic oscillator ising machines compared to a popular classical optimization algorithm for the Max-Cut problem

Abstract

Abstract Solving certain combinatorial optimization problems like Max-Cut becomes challenging once the graph size and edge connectivity increase beyond a threshold, with brute-force algorithms which solve such problems exactly on conventional digital computers having the bottleneck of exponential time complexity. Hence currently, such problems are instead solved approximately using algorithms like Goemans–Williamson (GW) algorithm, run on conventional computers with polynomial time complexity. Phase binarized oscillators (PBOs), also often known as oscillator Ising machines, have been proposed as an alternative to solve such problems. In this paper, restricting ourselves to the combinatorial optimization problem Max-Cut solved on three kinds of graphs (Mobius Ladder, random cubic, Erdös Rényi) up to 100 nodes, we empirically show that computation time/time to solution (TTS) for PBOs (captured through Kuramoto model) grows at a much lower rate (logarithmically: O ( log ( N ) ), with respect to graph size N) compared to GW algorithm, for which TTS increases as square of graph size ( O (N 2)). However, Kuramoto model being a physics-agnostic mathematical model, this time complexity/ TTS trend for PBOs is a general trend and is device-physics agnostic. So for more specific results, we choose spintronic oscillators, known for their high operating frequency (in GHz), and model them through Slavin’s model which captures the physics of their coupled magnetization oscillation dynamics. We thereby empirically show that TTS of spintronic oscillators also grows logarithmically with graph size ( O ( log ( N ) ), while their accuracy is comparable to that of GW. So spintronic oscillators have improved time complexity over GW algorithm. For large graphs, they are expected to compute Max-Cut values much faster than GW algorithm, as well as other oscillators operating at lower frequencies, while maintaining the same level of accuracy.