Spin Freezing in Oscillator Ising Machines: When Second Harmonic Injection Impedes Computation

Abstract: Second harmonic injection (SHI) has emerged as a critical mechanism in enabling networks of coupled oscillators to function as Oscillator Ising Machines (OIMs), capable of minimizing the Ising Hamiltonian. While SHI facilitates phase binarization essential for mapping oscillator phases to spin states, we demonstrate that it can also induce a previously unreported phenomenon -- spin freezing -- where oscillator spins are unable to transition between spin states, even when such a transition can reduce the Ising energy. This freezing effect can impair the analog dynamics of the OIM, preventing it from reaching lower-energy spin configurations. Through theoretical analysis and numerical simulations, we show that the onset of spin freezing is highly sensitive to the initial phase configuration of the oscillators. Contrary to conventional practice, which favors random initialization, we find that initializing all oscillators at specific phase values ($\phi = \pi$ or $\phi = \frac{\pi}{2}$) delays the onset of spin freezing and consistently yields higher-quality solutions. These findings point to the need to carefully engineer the SHI for optimal performance.