Simulated annealing

Abstract

In its original form [KIR82], [ČER85] the simulated annealing algorithm is based on the analogy between the simulation of the annealing pf solids and the problem of solving large combinatorial optimization problems. For this reason the algorithm became known as “simulated annealing”. In condensed matter physics, annealing denotes a physical process in which a solid in a heat bath is heated up by increasing the temperature of the heat bath to a maximum value at which all particles of the solid randomly arrange themselves in the liquid phase, followed by cooling through slowly lowering the temperature of the heat bath. In this way, all particles arrange themselves in the low energy ground state of a corresponding lattice, provided the maximum temperature is sufficiently high and the cooling is carried out sufficiently slowly. Starting off at the maximum value of the temperature, the cooling phase of the annealing process can be described as follows.