Accelerated Rydberg-EIT quantum memory via shortcuts to adiabaticity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a shortcut-to-adiabaticity technique to significantly accelerate Rydberg-EIT quantum memory storage, maintaining high fidelity and robustness despite imperfections, thus enabling faster and more reliable quantum information processing.

Contribution

The study develops a novel STA-based protocol for Rydberg-EIT quantum memory that surpasses traditional adiabatic limits while suppressing lossy intermediate states and remaining robust against practical imperfections.

Findings

Significantly shortened writing time beyond adiabatic limit.

Effective suppression of lossy intermediate state population.

Robust performance under imperfect control and non-ideal conditions.

Abstract

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) enables coherent light-matter storage, forming the basis of photonic quantum memories that are essential for scalable quantum networks and distributed quantum computing. However, accelerating the storage process violates the adiabatic condition, resulting in the excitation of the lossy intermediate state and a reduction in writing efficiency. We propose and numerically investigate a high-speed, high-fidelity quantum storage scheme by incorporating a shortcut-to-adiabaticity (STA) technique based on counter-diabatic (CD) driving. By introducing a precisely engineered auxiliary field into a conventional EIT system, our protocol significantly shortens the writing time beyond the conventional adiabatic limit while effectively suppressing the transient population of the lossy intermediate state. Furthermore, our scheme demonstrates strong flexibility in pulse design, remaining effective across different temporal profiles of both the control and signal fields. It also exhibits robustness against imperfections in the CD drive. Even with imperfect single-photon writing and non-ideal Rydberg blockade, the scheme retains clear advantages, maintaining high storage performance and overcoming the intrinsic speed-fidelity trade-off of traditional EIT protocols. These features pave the way for fast and robust quantum devices suitable for high-throughput quantum repeaters and advanced quantum information processing.