We decompose the quantum adiabatic evolution as the products of gauge invariant unitary operators and obtain the exact nonadiabatic correction in the adiabatic approximation. A necessary and sufficient condition that leads to adiabatic evolution with geometric phases is provided, and we determine that in the adiabatic evolution, while the eigenstates are slowly varying, the eigenenergies and degeneracy of the Hamiltonian can change rapidly. We exemplify this result by the example of the adiabatic evolution driven by parametrized pulse sequences. For driving fields that are rotating slowly with the same average energy and evolution path, fast modulation fields can have smaller nonadiabatic errors than obtained under the traditional approach with a constant amplitude.

• Received 24 March 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.052107