Shortcuts to Adiabaticity II

Dear Colleagues,

Driving a system by slowly changing the control parameters guarantees, ideally, no excitations from the initial to the final setting, and the same final energies independent of the exact (smooth) trajectory of the parameters. Two main drawbacks of this “adiabatic” approach are the length of time it takes and the fact that non-ideal, noisy conditions may spoil the intended outcome. Even so, adiabatic methods are ubiquitous in physics, chemistry, and engineering.

Shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA) are a set of techniques to get the same results as the adiabatic methods in a short time, allowing for some transient excitations. The main approaches are based on invariants, fast-forward or counterdiabatic driving, inverse engineering, and local adiabatic methods, possibly hybridized with optimal control theory, perturbative, iterative, Lie-algebraic, and variational methods. Most of these approaches produce families of parameter paths, which can be used to optimize resilience with respect to noise and perturbations. Quantum physics has been the main application field, since the delicate quantum coherence is easily degraded in slow manipulations, but preserving it is essential to develop new quantum technologies. A further motivation is the possibility to produce microscopic engines or refrigerators that are both efficient and powerful. Other fields where STA are being applied include optics, to produce more compact devices; classical or stochastic mechanics; physical chemistry; and engineering.

Shortcuts play a very practical role, but also imply fundamental questions such as determining the trade-off relations and limits for process time, energy consumption, or information needed. This Special Issue will reflect the current, rich scenario of methods and applications of shortcuts to adiabaticity.

Dr. Andreas Ruschhaupt
Prof. Dr. J. Gonzalo Muga
Guest Editors

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