In an adiabatic rapid passage experiment, the Bloch vector of a two-level system (qubit) is inverted by slowly inverting an external field to which it is coupled, and along which it is initially aligned. In twisted rapid passage, the external field is allowed to twist around its initial direction with azimuthal angle $ϕ(t)$ at the same time that it is inverted. For polynomial twist: $ϕ(t) \sim Bt^{n}$. We show that for $n \geq 3$, multiple avoided crossings can occur during the inversion of the external field, and that these crossings give rise to strong interference effects in the qubit transition probability. The transition probability is found to be a function of the twist strength $B$, which can be used to control the time-separation of the avoided crossings, and hence the character of the interference. Constructive and destructive interference are possible. The interference effects are a consequence of the temporal phase coherence of the wavefunction. The ability to vary this coherence by varying the temporal separation of the avoided crossings renders twisted rapid passage with adjustable twist strength into a temporal interferometer through which qubit transitions can be greatly enhanced or suppressed. Possible application of this interference mechanism to construction of fast fault-tolerant quantum CNOT and NOT gates is discussed.
Electrically tunable quantum interference of atomic spins on surfaces
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）；International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL)（伊比利亚纳米技术国际实验室）；Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica (CONICET-UNNE), and Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Naturales y Agrimensura, Universidad Nacional del Nordeste（内布罗国立大学精确、自然和测量科学学院）
