  Geometrically frustrated spin-chain compounds such as Ca3Co2O6 exhibit
extremely slow relaxation under a changing magnetic field. Consequently, both
low-temperature laboratory experiments and Monte Carlo simulations have shown
peculiar out-of-equilibrium magnetization curves, which arise from trapping in
metastable configurations. In this work we simulate this phenomenon in a
superconducting quantum annealing processor, allowing us to probe the impact of
quantum fluctuations on both equilibrium and dynamics of the system. Increasing
the quantum fluctuations with a transverse field reduces the impact of
metastable traps in out-of-equilibrium samples, and aids the development of
three-sublattice ferrimagnetic (up-up-down) long-range order. At equilibrium we
identify a finite-temperature shoulder in the 1/3-to-saturated phase
transition, promoted by quantum fluctuations but with entropic origin. This
work demonstrates the viability of dynamical as well as equilibrium studies of
frustrated magnetism using large-scale programmable quantum systems, and is
therefore an important step toward programmable simulation of dynamics in
materials using quantum hardware.
