collaborators

11 papers

physics.comp-ph2026

Label-Permutation Symmetry and Stability in Oscillator Potts Machines

E. M. Hasantha Ekanayake, Nikhil Shukla

Oscillator Potts machines (OPMs) provide a physics-inspired, energy-minimization framework for solving combinatorial optimization problems described by the -state Potts Hamilton…

physics.comp-ph2026

Astroid Spinodal Boundary in Phase-Based Ising Machines

Malihe Farasat, Nikhil Shukla

Oscillator Ising machines (OIMs) and dynamical Ising machines (DIMs) encode binary spins in phase states stabilized by second-harmonic injection (SHI). In a coupled network, the co…

cs.LG2026

Learning from Noise: Effective-Rank Collapse and Out-of-Distribution Rejection in Restricted Boltzmann Machines

Oshada Rathnayake, Nikhil Shukla

Restricted Boltzmann machines (RBMs) represent data by shaping an energy landscape over visible and hidden configurations, but their discriminative use is fragile under out-of-dist…

physics.comp-ph2026

Leveraging Population Dynamics to Steer Efficient Search in Large-Scale Combinatorial Optimization

Nikhat Khan, Ridge Redding, Nikhil Shukla

Combinatorial optimization problems pose substantial computational challenges because their feasible solution spaces grow exponentially with problem size. This paper presents a GPU…

cs.CE2026

Cosm: orchestrated collective dynamics give rise to rapid computational search at the solution frontier

Kenneth M. Zick, Nikhil Shukla, Alexander Marakov

We introduce Collective Switched Motion (Cosm), a heuristic optimization framework based on orchestrated collective dynamics. Cosm organizes the objective into conflict-minimized s…

physics.comp-ph2026

Breakdown of Gradient-Flow Dynamics in Oscillator Ising Machines from Harmonic Misalignment

Abir Hasan, E. M. Hasantha Ekanayake, Kyle Lee +2

Oscillator Ising machines (OIMs) are often viewed as physical systems that perform gradient descent on an energy landscape encoding Ising solutions. Here, we show that this interpr…

eess.SY2025

Analyzing Parametric Oscillator Ising Machines through the Kuramoto Lens

Nikhat Khan, E. M. H. E. B. Ekanayake, Nicolas Casilli +3

Networks of coupled nonlinear oscillators are emerging as powerful physical platforms for implementing Ising machines. Yet the relationship between parametric-oscillator implementa…

math-ph2025

New Best-Known Max-Cut Solution for the G63 Instance in the G-Set Benchmark

Nikhat Khan, Nikhil Shukla

For over two decades, the G-set benchmark has remained a cornerstone challenge for combinatorial optimization solvers. Remarkably, it continues to yield new best-known solutions ev…

physics.comp-ph2025

Spin Freezing in Oscillator Ising Machines: When Second Harmonic Injection Impedes Computation

Malihe Farasat, E. M. H. E. B. Ekanayake, Nikhil Shukla

Second harmonic injection (SHI) has emerged as a critical mechanism in enabling networks of coupled oscillators to function as Oscillator Ising Machines (OIMs), capable of minimizi…

physics.comp-ph2025

Bridging the Analog and the Probabilistic Computing Divide: Configuring Oscillator Ising Machines as P-bit Engines

E. M. Hasantha Ekanayake, Nikhat Khan, Nikhil Shukla

Oscillator Ising Machines (OIMs) and probabilistic bit (p-bit)-based computing platforms have emerged as promising paradigms for tackling complex combinatorial optimization problem…

cs.LG2025

Different Paths, Same Destination: Designing New Physics-Inspired Dynamical Systems with Engineered Stability to Minimize the Ising Hamiltonian

E. M. H. E. B. Ekanayake, N. Shukla

Oscillator Ising machines (OIMs) represent an exemplar case of using physics-inspired non-linear dynamical systems to solve computationally challenging combinatorial optimization p…