  In this paper, a method to accelerate population transfer by designing
nonadiabatic evolution paths is proposed. We apply the method to realize robust
and accelerated population transfer with a transmon qutrit. By numerical
simulation, we show that this method allows a robust population transfer
between the ground states in a $\Lambda$ system. Moreover, the total pulse area
for the population transfer is low as 1.9$\pi$ that verifies the evolution is
accelerated without increasing the pulse intensity. Therefore, the method is
easily implementable based on the modern pulse shaper technology and it
provides selectable schemes with interesting applications in quantum
information processing.
