Detecting multiple communities using quantum annealing on the D-Wave system

PLoS One. 2020 Feb 13;15(2):e0227538. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227538. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

A very important problem in combinatorial optimization is the partitioning of a network into communities of densely connected nodes; where the connectivity between nodes inside a particular community is large compared to the connectivity between nodes belonging to different ones. This problem is known as community detection, and has become very important in various fields of science including chemistry, biology and social sciences. The problem of community detection is a twofold problem that consists of determining the number of communities and, at the same time, finding those communities. This drastically increases the solution space for heuristics to work on, compared to traditional graph partitioning problems. In many of the scientific domains in which graphs are used, there is the need to have the ability to partition a graph into communities with the "highest quality" possible since the presence of even small isolated communities can become crucial to explain a particular phenomenon. We have explored community detection using the power of quantum annealers, and in particular the D-Wave 2X and 2000Q machines. It turns out that the problem of detecting at most two communities naturally fits into the architecture of a quantum annealer with almost no need of reformulation. This paper addresses a systematic study of detecting two or more communities in a network using a quantum annealer.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Martial Arts
  • Models, Molecular
  • Proteins / chemistry
  • Quantum Theory*

Substances

  • Proteins

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This research has been funded by the LANL Information Science and Technology Institute (ISTI), Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD), and ASC program. Assigned: Los Alamos Unclassified Report LA-UR-18-30760. LANL is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy (Contract No. 89233218NCA000001). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.