Quantum annealing in capacitively coupled Kerr parametric oscillators using frequency-chirped drives

Abstract: We study parametric oscillations of two capacitively coupled Kerr parametric oscillators (KPOs) with frequency-chirped two- and one-photon drives. The two-KPO system adiabatically evolves from the initial vacuum state to an oscillation state corresponding to a solution state in quantum-annealing applications. Frequency chirping dynamically changes the detuning between resonance and oscillation frequencies during parametric modulation and reduces unwanted population transfer to excited states caused by pure dephasing and photon loss. We observe that frequency chirping increases the success probability to obtain the solution state and that simulations taking into account pure dephasing reproduce experiments with and without frequency chirping. This study demonstrates the effectiveness and applicability of frequency chirping to a KPO-based quantum annealer.