Shortcuts to adiabaticity by counterdiabatic driving for trapped-ion displacement in phase space

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first experimental implementation of counterdiabatic driving to rapidly and robustly transport a trapped ion in phase space, effectively mimicking adiabatic evolution and outperforming classical control methods.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental realization of shortcuts to adiabaticity via counterdiabatic driving in a continuous variable quantum system, specifically a trapped ion.

Findings

Robustness of counterdiabatic protocol exceeds classical control schemes.

Achieved fast adiabatic-like transport of a trapped ion.

Demonstrated applicability of shortcuts to quantum technologies.

Abstract

The application of adiabatic protocols in quantum technologies is severely limited by environmental sources of noise and decoherence. Shortcuts to adiabaticity by counterdiabatic driving constitute a powerful alternative that speed up time-evolution while mimicking adiabatic dynamics. Here we present the first experimental implementation of counterdiabatic driving in a continuous variable system, a shortcut to the adiabatic transport of a trapped ion in the phase space. The resulting dynamics is equivalent to a "fast-motion video" of the adiabatic trajectory. The robustness of this protocol is shown to surpass that of competing schemes based on classical local controls and Fourier optimization methods. Our results demonstrate that shortcuts to adiabaticity provide a robust speedup of quantum protocols of wide applicability in quantum technologies.