Optimization problems, such as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Previous quantum protocols are slower.
A new quantum protocol called the “bang-anneal-bang” protocol, for solving optimization problems such as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) on a quantum computer.
Our protocol performs better (gets to the optimum faster or gets closer to the optimum under a fixed time constraint) than existing protocols, including quantum annealing, the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA), and the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE).