We design, by invariant-based inverse engineering, driving fields that invert the population of a two-level atom in a given time, robustly with respect to dephasing noise and/or systematic frequency shifts. Without imposing constraints, optimal protocols are insensitive to the perturbations but need an infinite energy. For a constrained value of the Rabi frequency, a flat pi pulse is the least sensitive protocol to phase noise but not to systematic frequency shifts, for which we describe and optimize a family of protocols

Type of publicationArticle (peer-reviewed) We theoretically investigate the motional excitation of a single ion caused by spring-constant and position fluctuations of a harmonic trap during trap shuttling processes. A detailed study of the sensitivity on noise for several transport protocols and noise spectra is provided. The effect of slow spring-constant drifts is also analyzed. Trap trajectories that minimize the excitation are designed combining invariant-based inverse engineering, perturbation theory, and optimal control.

We investigate the excitation of a quantum particle shuttled in a harmonic trap with weak springconstant colored noise. The Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model for the noise correlation function describes a wide range of possible noises, in particular for short correlation times the white-noise limit examined in Lu et al, Phys. Rev. A 89, 063414 (2014) and, by averaging over correlation times, "1/f flicker noise". We find expressions for the excitation energy in terms of static (independent of trap motion) and dynamical sensitivities, with opposite behavior with respect to shuttling time, and demonstrate that the excitation can be reduced by proper process timing and design of the trap trajectory.