Improving variational counterdiabatic driving with weighted actions and computer algebra

Variational counterdiabatic (CD) driving is a disciplined and widely used method to robustly control quantum many-body systems by mimicking adiabatic processes with high fidelity and reduced duration. Central to this technique is a universal structure of the adiabatic gauge potential (AGP) over a parameterized Hamiltonian. Here, we reveal that introducing a new degree of freedom into the theory of the AGP can significantly improve variational CD driving. Specifically, we find that the algebraic characterization of the AGP is not unique, and we exploit this non-uniqueness to develop the weighted variational method for deriving a refined driving protocol. This approach extends the conventional method in two aspects: it assigns customized weights to matrix elements relevant to specific problems, and it effectively incorporates nonlocal information. We also develop an efficient numerical algorithm to compute the refined driving protocol using computer algebra. Our framework is broadly applicable and, in principle, it can replace any previous use of variational CD driving. We demonstrate its practicality by applying it to adiabatic evolution along the ground state of a parameterized Hamiltonian. This proposal outperforms the conventional method in terms of fidelity, as confirmed by extensive numerical simulations on quantum Ising models.