We present a method for optimization of the technique of adiabatic passage between two quantum states by composite sequences of frequency-chirped pulses with specific relative phases: composite adiabatic passage (CAP). By choosing the composite phases appropriately the nonadiabatic losses can be canceled to any desired order with sufficiently long sequences, regardless of the nonadiabatic coupling. The values of the composite phases are universal for they do not depend on the pulse shapes and the chirp. The accuracy of the CAP technique and its robustness against parameter variations make CAP suitable for high-fidelity quantum information processing.

We present a systematic SU(2) approach for construction of composite sequences of pulses with smooth temporal shapes that produce high-fidelity two-state excitation profiles. This makes possible the application of composite pulses to quantum control and quantum information processing with short and ultrashort laser pulses. We present an exact analytic formula for the composite phases for arbitrarily accurate broadband pulses, examples of narrowband, passband and fractional-π pulses, as well as composite pulses with detuning compensation.

We propose a non-Hermitian generalization of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), which allows one to increase speed and fidelity of the adiabatic passage. This is done by adding balanced imaginary (gain and loss) terms in the diagonal (bare energy) terms of the Hamiltonian and choosing them such that they cancel exactly the nonadiabatic couplings, providing in this way an effective shortcut to adiabaticity. Remarkably, for a STIRAP using delayed Gaussian-shaped pulses in the counterintuitive scheme the imaginary terms of the Hamiltonian turn out to be time independent. A possible physical realization of non-Hermitian STIRAP, based on light transfer in three evanescently coupled optical waveguides, is proposed