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The number of topological defects created in a system driven through aquantum phase transition exhibits a power-law scaling with the driving time.This universal scaling law is the key prediction of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism(KZM), and testing it using a hardware-based quantum simulator is a covetedgoal of quantum information science. Here we provide such a test using quantumannealing. Specifically, we report on extensive experimental tests oftopological defect formation via the one-dimensional transverse-field Isingmodel on two different D-Wave quantum annealing devices. We find that thequantum simulator results can indeed be explained by the KZM for open-systemquantum dynamics with phase-flip errors, with certain quantitative deviationsfrom the theory likely caused by factors such as random control errors andtransient effects. In addition, we probe physics beyond the KZM by identifyingsignatures of universality in the distribution and cumulants of the number ofkinks and their decay, and again find agreement with the quantum simulatorresults. This implies that the theoretical predictions of the generalized KZMtheory, which assumes isolation from the environment, applies beyond itsoriginal scope to an open system. We support this result by extensive numericalcomputations. To check whether an alternative, classical interpretation ofthese results is possible, we used the spin-vector Monte Carlo model, acandidate classical description of the D-Wave device. We find that the degreeof agreement with the experimental data from the D-Wave annealing devices isbetter for the KZM, a quantum theory, than for the classical spin-vector MonteCarlo model, thus favoring a quantum description of the device. Our workprovides an experimental test of quantum critical dynamics in an open quantumsystem, and paves the way to new directions in quantum simulation experiments.

Probing the Universality of Topological Defect Formation in a Quantum Annealer: Kibble-Zurek Mechanism and Beyond