We report the realization of a nuclear magnetic resonance computer with three
quantum bits that simulates an adiabatic quantum optimization algorithm.
Adiabatic quantum algorithms offer new insight into how quantum resources can
be used to solve hard problems. This experiment uses a particularly well suited
three quantum bit molecule and was made possible by introducing a technique
that encodes general instances of the given optimization problem into an easily
applicable Hamiltonian. Our results indicate an optimal run time of the
adiabatic algorithm that agrees well with the prediction of a simple
decoherence model.Comment: REVTeX, 5 pages, 4 figures, improved lay-out; accepted for
publication in Physical Review Letter