Is demagnetization an efficient optimization method

Abstract Demagnetization, commonly employed to study ferromagnets, has been proposed as the basis for an optimization tool, a method to find the ground state of a disordered system. Here we present a detailed comparison between the ground state and the demagnetized state in the random field Ising model, combing exact results in d=1 and numerical solutions in d=3. We show that there are important differences between the two states that persist in the thermodynamic limit and thus conclude that AC demagnetization is not an efficient optimization method.