Probing phases of matter with advanced control of a quantum annealing processor

Much of the research performed on D-Wave superconducting processors has focused on the annealing of randomly generated spin-glass instances of various constructions. Now, new doors are open that allow us to more effectively study systems of interest with nonzero transverse field. The most recent generation of processor offers new features, including the ability to reverse anneal from a user-defined classical state and to quickly quench the anneal to its terminus faster than annealing allows. We show how these features can be used to study the interplay between low dimensionality, quantum fluctuations and thermal effects in a geometrically frustrated lattice, with potential applications to materials simulation.