  In this paper we consider the use of certain classical analogues to quantum
tunneling behavior to improve the performance of simulated annealing on a
discrete spin system of the general Ising form. Specifically, we consider the
use of multiple simultaneous spin flips at each annealing step as an analogue
to quantum spin coherence as well as modifications of the Boltzmann acceptance
probability to mimic quantum tunneling. We find that the use of multiple spin
flips can indeed be advantageous under certain annealing schedules, but only
for long anneal times.
