Quantum control papers on arXiv, selected and classified automatically by QOC. https://llorebaga.github.io/QOC/topics/goat/ 2026-09-30T00:00:00Z QOC https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.26867 2026-07-29T00:00:00Z 2026-09-30T00:00:00Z Ashutosh MishraElena LupoFrank K. WilhelmAlessandro Ciani

Gradient-based quantum optimal control and the theory of operator evolution are rarely discussed together. In this Letter, we bridge this gap by showing that the gradient of the time-evolved propagator involves the Heisenberg evolution of local operators. We present a unifying framework by deriving from first principles the formal solution for the gradient under an arbitrary pulse parameterization, and show that the same construction extends to derivatives of any order. We obtain a series of nested, time-independent commutators weighted by time-dependent scalar coefficients. The commutators are thus computed once, and each optimization step only updates the scalars. The method is particularly suited for simulating optimal control tasks in quantum systems with local interactions, which is a common situation in large multi-qubit platforms. In this setting, light-cone arguments and sparse-Pauli truncation heuristics may be used to keep the number of relevant terms in the series small. We compare the computational cost required for the series with the Gradient Optimization of Analytic conTrols (GOAT) method, and, focusing on the problem of preparation of a GHZ state, demonstrate more than an order of magnitude speedup for a qubit ladder and a chain geometry.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.02837 2020-06-04T00:00:00Z 2020-06-04T00:00:00Z Thien NguyenAnthony SantanaAlexander McCaskey

Quantum computing vendors are beginning to open up application programming interfaces for direct pulse-level quantum control. With this, programmers can begin to describe quantum kernels of execution via sequences of arbitrary pulse shapes. This opens new avenues of research and development with regards to smart quantum compilation routines that enable direct translation of higher-level digital assembly representations to these native pulse instructions. In this work, we present an extension to the XACC system-level quantum-classical software framework that directly enables this compilation lowering phase via user-specified quantum optimal control techniques. This extension enables the translation of digital quantum circuit representations to equivalent pulse sequences that are optimal with respect to the backend system dynamics. Our work is modular and extensible, enabling third party optimal control techniques and strategies in both C++ and Python. We demonstrate this extension with familiar gradient-based methods like gradient ascent pulse engineering (GRAPE), gradient optimization of analytic controls (GOAT), and Krotov's method. Our work serves as a foundational component of future quantum-classical compiler designs that lower high-level programmatic representations to low-level machine instructions.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1507.04261 2015-07-15T00:00:00Z 2018-03-01T00:00:00Z Shai MachnesElie AssématDavid J. TannorFrank K. Wilhelm

Quantum computation places very stringent demands on gate fidelities, and experimental implementations require both the controls and the resultant dynamics to conform to hardware-specific constraints. Superconducting qubits present the additional requirement that pulses must have simple parameterizations, so they can be further calibrated in the experiment, to compensate for uncertainties in system parameters. Other quantum technologies, such as sensing, require extremely high fidelities. We present a novel, conceptually simple and easy-to-implement gradient-based optimal control technique named Gradient Optimization of Analytic conTrols (GOAT), which satisfies all the above requirements, unlike previous approaches. To demonstrate GOAT's capabilities, with emphasis on flexibility and ease of subsequent calibration, we optimize fast coherence-limited pulses for two leading superconducting qubits architectures - flux-tunable transmons and fixed-frequency transmons with tunable couplers.