IEEE Dallas Circuits and Systems Conference (DCAS)
Geometric Phases in NV Centers: Abelian and Non-Abelian Protocols Using Hyperfine-Engineered Dark Subspaces
S. Biswas, V. A. Chirayath, Jonathan Asaadi
Abstract
Geometric phases encode the holonomy acquired under cyclic control of a quantum Hamiltonian: for nondegenerate eigenstates the effect is Abelian (a scalar phase), while in degenerate manifolds the Wilczek-Zee generalization yields a matrix-valued holonomy that can mix states and depends on path ordering. We present an overview of measuring Abelian and non-Abelian geometric phases in nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond and propose a non-rotating measurement protocol enabled by the intrinsic${ }^{14} ~\mathrm{N}$hyperfine manifold. As a first step, we propose to measure the Abelian Berry phase on a single hyperfine-resolved two-level transition using microwaveengineered closed loops with dynamical-phase cancellation by loop reversal. We then propose a non-Abelian protocol that engineers a two-dimensional degenerate dark subspace in an NV-${ }^{14} ~\mathrm{N}$manifold via RF dressing and three phase-coherent microwave couplings (a tripod Hamiltonian). Two closed control loops implemented by winding independent microwave phases generate non-commuting SU(2) holonomies, which can be verified using final-only population readout and minimal tomography. We also present timing trade-off curves, full unitary Schrödinger evolution of the four-level tripod, and projected dark-subspace diagnostics that quantify both leakage and non-commuting holonomy.