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On the compatibility of the adiabatic and rotating wave approximations for robust population transfer in qubits

Rémi Robin, Nicolas Augier, Ugo Boscain, Mario Sigalotti

Published Mar 10, 2020• 2 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

In the physics literature it is common to see the rotating wave approximation and the adiabatic approximation used to justify the use of chirped pulses for two-level quantum systems driven by one external field, in particular when the resonance frequency of the system is not known precisely. Both approximations need relatively long time and are essentially based on averaging theory of dynamical systems. Unfortunately, the two approximations cannot be done independently since, in a sense, the two time scales interact. The purpose of this paper is to study how the cascade of the two approximations can be justified and how large becomes the final time as the fidelity goes to one, while preserving the robustness of the adiabatic strategy. Our main result gives a precise quantification of the uncertainty interval of the resonance frequency for which the strategy works. We believe that this result, beside its mathematical interest, could be useful in experimental situations.

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In the physics literature it is common to see the rotating wave approximation and the adiabatic approximation used to justify the use of chirped pulses for two-level quantum systems driven by one external field, in particular when the resonance frequency of the system is not known precisely. Both approximations need relatively long time and are essentially based on averaging theory of dynamical systems. Unfortunately, the two approximations cannot be done independently since, in a sense, the two time scales interact. The purpose of this paper is to study how the cascade of the two approximations can be justified and how large becomes the final time as the fidelity goes to one, while preserving the robustness of the adiabatic strategy. Our main result gives a precise quantification of the uncertainty interval of the resonance frequency for which the strategy works. We believe that this result, beside its mathematical interest, could be useful in experimental situations.
We investigate the problem of population transfer in a two-states system driven by an external electromagnetic field featuring a few cycles, until the extreme limit of two or one cycle. Taking the physical constraint of zero-area total field into account, we determine strategies leading to ultrahigh-fidelity population transfer despite the failure of the rotating wave approximation. We specifically implement adiabatic passage based on adiabatic Floquet theory for a number of cycles as low as 2.5 cycles, finding and making the dynamics follow an adiabatic trajectory connecting the initial and targeted states. Nonadiabatic strategies with shaped or chirped pulses, extending the π-pulse regime to two- or single-cycle pulses, are also derived.
Population transfer via chirped rapid adiabatic passage is studied using open quantum and semiclassical models, with and without the rotating-wave approximation. A time-dependent variational approach based on the multiple-Davydov D2_22​ trial state is employed to simulate the quantum models with an arbitrary finite mean photon number. We examine the accuracy of both the semiclassical field description and the rotating-wave approximation. Robust population transfer is identified over a wide parameter regime controlled by the laser spectral chirp and is found to be insensitive to the spin--phonon coupling strength, Gaussian pulse area, and energy gap of the two-level system.
In this paper, we discuss the compatibility between the rotating-wave and the adiabatic approximations for controlled quantum systems. Although the paper focuses on applications to two-level quantum systems, the main results apply in higher dimension. Under some suitable hypotheses on the time scales, the two approximations can be combined. As a natural consequence of this, it is possible to design control laws achieving transitions of states between two energy levels of the Hamiltonian that are robust with respect to inhomogeneities of the amplitude of the control input.
In this paper, we discuss the compatibility between the rotating-wave and the adiabatic approximations for controlled quantum systems. Although the paper focuses on applications to two-level quantum systems, the main results apply in higher dimension. Under some suitable hypotheses on the time scales, the two approximations can be combined. As a natural consequence of this, it is possible to design control laws achieving transitions of states between two energy levels of the Hamiltonian that are robust with respect to inhomogeneities of the amplitude of the control input.
The technique of shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA) has attracted broad attention due to their possible applications in quantum information processing and quantum control. However, most studies published so far have been only focused on Hermitian systems under the rotating-wave approximation (RWA). In this paper, we propose a modified shortcuts to adiabaticity technique to realize population transfer for a non-Hermitian system without RWA. We work out an exact expression for the control function and present examples consisting of two-and three-level systems with decay to show the theory. The results suggest that the shortcuts to adiabaticity technique presented here is robust for fast passages. We also find that the decay has small effect on the population transfer in the three-level system. To shed more light on the physics behind this result, we reduce the quantum three-level system to an effective two-level one with large detunings. The shortcuts to adiabaticity technique of effective two-level system is studied. Thereby the high-fidelity population transfer can be implemented in non-Hermitian systems by our method, and it works even without RWA.
Recently, Rostovtsev et al (2009 Phys. Rev. A 79 063833) established an analytical treatment of the detuned atom–field interaction without using the rotating-wave approximation (RWA). Using this result, here we study qualitatively the dynamics of geometric phase (GP) and population transfer in a two-level atom interacting with an external off-resonant classical field for arbitrary pulse shape without using RWA. We use this exact method (without RWA) to reexamine the variation of populations and GP and compare the result with the RWA considering two kinds of the external field. We show that it is possible to control the GP dynamics by choosing suitable parameters of the atom–field system. Interestingly, we find that the variation of the populations and GP in the time is unchanged and it differs as we get further from the resonance. Moreover, we show that the Rabi frequency plays a role in reduction or augmentation of the periodic time interval for the GP. The solution is very suitable for atom–field systems, especially when the system is far from the resonance so that the RWA method breaks down.