Hysteretic optimization is a heuristic optimization method based on the
observation that magnetic samples are driven into a low energy state when
demagnetized by an oscillating magnetic field of decreasing amplitude. We show
that hysteretic optimization is very good for finding ground states of
Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass systems. With this method it is possible to
get good statistics for ground state energies for large samples of systems
consisting of up to about 2000 spins. The way we estimate error rates may be
useful for some other optimization methods as well. Our results show that both
the average and the width of the ground state energy distribution converges
faster with increasing size than expected from earlier studies.Comment: Physica A, accepte