Condensed Matter Seminar: How come laser systems can solve difficult problems?

In recent years a few experiments demonstrated that ``Ising machines" of different types can provide a good solution to difficult problems. Why? This is yet unknown, so I am not going to answer the question in the title. Instead, I will tell you about a few directions that we explored, and argue that the question is even more mysterious than originally expected.

References:

“On-Site Potential Creates Complexity in Systems with Disordered Coupling”, I. Gershenzon, B. Lacroix-A-Chez-Toine, O. Raz, E. Subag, and O. Zeitouni, Phys. Rev. Lett., 130, 237103. (2023).

“Rapid laser solver for the phase retrieval problem”, C. Tradonsky, I. Gershenzon, V. Pal, R. Chriki, A. A. Friesem, O. Raz, N. Davidson, Science Advances, 5, eaax4530, (2019).