Solving the Sayre equation by simulated annealing

Simulated annealing is used to solve the Sayre equation formulated as a minimization problem. Trial calculations for structures containing up to 126 non-H equal atoms have been carried out. The residual as a function of the fictitious temperature always exhibits a sudden drop before the emergence of the correct structure at low temperature. This behavior casts doubt on the suitability of solving the Sayre equation by steepest-descent methods.