High-fidelity population inversion of two-level system

Abstract

Population inversion from an initial quantum state to a desired quantum state represents an exciting new frontier for quantum manipulation; that frontier is endowed with a strong interdisciplinary character and connections to other scientific fields, including atomic, molecular, and optical physics, as well as in solid-state devices, for fundamental studies, nuclear magnetic resonance and other spectroscopic techniques, metrology, interferometry, optical control of chemical reactions or quantum-information applications. Two-level systems are ubiquitous in these areas, and the driving of a population inversion is an important operation. So far various schemes for population transfer to a target state from an initial state have been proposed in theory and implemented in experiment. To be useful, such methods must, of course, be reliable, fast, and robust. Most literatures on two-level models investigated population inversion, which could be modelled by infinite-time processes. In this paper, by using a composite adiabatic passage (CAP) technique—in which the single pulse driving the quantum transition is replaced by a sequence of pulses with well-defined control phases, we investigate the population inversion problem of two-level quantum system with a finite duration. We take a sinusoidally varying pulse model that continuously vanishes at the beginning and the end of the finite duration as an example. The high-fidelity population inversion of the two-level system with finite duration is achieved. We discuss the effects of both coupling strength and detuning strength on the transition probability. It is found that this protocol could suppress the oscillations in the transition probability and reduce the admissible error bellow the 10 -4 quantum computation benchmark. The fidelity can arrive at 1, even with simple three- and five-composite pulse sequences. The protocol combines the advantages of adiabatic passage and composite pulses techniques. By choosing the composite phases appropriately, a high-fidelity, fast, stable and extremely robust complete population inversion is achieved for the finite-time two-level model. The values of the composite phases are universal for they do not depend on the pulse shapes and the chirp as long as the latter satisfy the symmetry property. Furthermore, the classical Hamiltonian is applied to describe the dynamic properties of the quantum system and further verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed CAP technique. The results we present here are general and in principle apply to any two- and multi-level quantum systems. The accuracy of the CAP technique and its robustness against parameter variations make the protocol suitable for ultrahigh-fidelity quantum manipulation. We believe that the protocol can be widely used in many different areas of science, ranging from the quantum information, the quantum chemical, and the quantum optics to the ultracold atomic and molecular physics.