Magnus expansion for a chirped quantum two-level system

Abstract

We derive a Magnus expansion for a frequency chirped quantum two-level system. We obtain a time-independent effective Hamiltonian which generates a stroboscopic time evolution. At lowest order the according dynamics is identical to results from using a rotating wave approximation. We determine, furthermore, also the next higher order corrections within our expansion scheme in correspondence to the Bloch-Siegert shifts for harmonically driven systems. Importantly, our scheme can be extended to more complicated systems, i.e. even many-body systems.