Quantum control papers on arXiv, selected and classified automatically by QOC. https://llorebaga.github.io/QOC/topics/problem-formulation/ 2025-12-04T00:00:00Z QOC https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04494 2025-12-04T00:00:00Z 2025-12-04T00:00:00Z Wen Ting HsiehDries Sels

This study explores the use of subspace methods in combination with counterdiabatic driving in a Rydberg atom system to solve the Maximum Independent Set (MIS) problem. Although exact counterdiabatic driving offers excellent performance, it comes at an unscalable computational cost. In this work, we demonstrate that counterdiabatic driving can be significantly improved by restricting the analysis to a relevant subspace of the system. We first show that both direct diagonalization and the Krylov method for obtaining the counterdiabatic matrix can be accelerated through the use of subspace techniques, while still maintaining strong performance. We then demonstrate that the cost function used in the standard Krylov method can be further optimized by employing a subspace-based cost function. These findings open up new possibilities for applying counterdiabatic driving in a practical and efficient manner to a variety of quantum systems.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04283 2025-09-04T00:00:00Z 2025-11-25T00:00:00Z Tristán M. OsánYanet ÁlvarezMariela PortesiPedro Walter Lamberti

In this work, we investigate the role of functionals of generalized fidelity measures in deriving quantum speed limits (QSLs) within a geometric approach. We establish a general theoretical framework and show that, once a specific generalized fidelity is selected, the resulting Margolus-Levitin and Mandelstam-Tamm QSLs for both unitary and nonunitary (Lindblad-type) dynamics depend solely on the chosen fidelity measure. We prove that any monotone, differentiable reparametrization of the chosen fidelity yields exactly the same Margolus-Levitin and Mandelstam-Tamm-type QSL, rendering the QSLs invariant under such transformations and thereby unifying fidelity- and metric-induced geometric formulations. This result highlights the limitations of improving QSLs through functional transformations of fidelity and indicates that genuine improvements must arise from alternative fidelity definitions. We further show that several QSLs reported in the literature are encompassed by our framework and discuss possible extensions based on other generalized fidelity measures beyond those explicitly analyzed. In addition, we consider the damped Jaynes-Cummings model as a concrete physical setting to explore the behavior of the QSLs discussed in this work and analyze their regime-dependent features.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09770 2025-07-13T00:00:00Z 2026-02-05T00:00:00Z Daniel TuryanskyYehonatan ZoltiYuval CohenAdi Pick

We present a robust pulse optimization method for adiabatic population transfer and adiabatic quantum computation. The approach relies on identifying control pulses that keep the evolving quantum system close to its instantaneous ground state. By combining advanced gradient-free optimization tools with specialized cost functions for adiabatic control, it achieves both efficiency and robustness. To demonstrate its generality, we apply the method to three examples involving both atomic and superconducting qubits. We test different optimization cost functions and discretization bases, showing that the approach outperforms ensemble optimization. Finally, to verify its performance on real quantum hardware, we implement digitized adiabatic qubit control using the optimized pulses on the IBM Quantum cloud.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.15367 2025-04-21T00:00:00Z 2025-04-21T00:00:00Z Anton SimenSebastián V. RomeroAlejandro Gomez CadavidEnrique SolanoNarendra N. Hegade

Branch-and-bound algorithms effectively solve combinatorial optimization problems, relying on the relaxation of the objective function to obtain tight lower bounds. While this is straightforward for convex objective functions, higher-order formulations pose challenges due to their inherent non-convexity. In this work, we propose branch-and-bound digitized counterdiabatic quantum optimization (BB-DCQO), a quantum algorithm that addresses the relaxation difficulties in higher-order unconstrained binary optimization (HUBO) problems. By employing bias fields as approximate solutions to the relaxed problem, we iteratively enhance the quality of the results compared to the bare bias-field digitized counterdiabatic quantum optimization (BF-DCQO) algorithm. We refer to this enhanced method as BBB-DCQO. In order to benchmark it against simulated annealing (SA), we apply it on sparse HUBO instances with up to $156$ qubits using tensor network simulations. To explore regimes that are less tractable for classical simulations, we experimentally apply BBB-DCQO to denser problems using up to 100 qubits on IBM quantum hardware. We compare our results with SA and a greedy-tuned quantum annealing baseline. In both simulations and experiments, BBB-DCQO consistently achieved higher-quality solutions with significantly reduced computational overhead, showcasing the effectiveness of integrating counterdiabatic quantum methods into branch-and-bound to address hard non-convex optimization tasks.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.04102 2025-02-06T00:00:00Z 2025-03-20T00:00:00Z Anirban DeyMattias T. JohnssonDaniel Burgarth

The precise implementation and manipulation of quantum gates is key to extracting advantages from future quantum technologies. Achieving this requires very accurate control over the quantum system. If one has complete knowledge about a Hamiltonian, accurate manipulation of the system is possible. However, in real scenarios, there will often be some uncertainty in the parameters of the Hamiltonian, which makes full control of the system either difficult or impossible. In this paper we consider two model Hamiltonians with a continuous parameter that is partly unknown. We assess robust controllability against this parameter uncertainty using existing theoretical frameworks and take a numerical route by discretizing the unknown parameter in the cases where we cannot predict controllability. Furthermore, we introduce a penalty term into the fidelity function to optimize control pulses, enhancing robustness against the influence of parameter fluctuations. Within our framework, we analyze the qualitative differences in the robust controllability of the two systems.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.11110 2024-08-20T00:00:00Z 2025-10-31T00:00:00Z Nicolò BeatoPranay PatilMarin Bukov

Control landscape phase transitions (CLPTs) occur as abrupt changes in the cost function landscape upon varying a control parameter, and can be revealed by non-analytic points in statistical order parameters. A prime example are quantum speed limits (QSL) which mark the onset of controllability as the protocol duration is increased. Here we lay the foundations of an analytical theory for CLPTs by developing Dyson, Magnus, and cumulant expansions for the cost function that capture the behavior of CLPTs with a controlled precision. Using linear and quadratic stability analysis, we reveal that CLPTs can be associated with different types of instabilities of the optimal protocol. This allows us to explicitly relate CLPTs to critical structural rearrangements in the extrema of the control landscape: utilizing path integral methods from statistical field theory, we trace back the critical scaling of the order parameter at the QSL to the topological and geometric properties of the set of optimal protocols, such as the number of connected components and its dimensionality. We verify our predictions by introducing a numerical sampling algorithm designed to explore this optimal set via a homotopic stochastic update rule. We apply this new toolbox explicitly to analyze CLPTs in the single- and two-qubit control problems whose landscapes are analytically tractable, and compare the landscapes for bang-bang and continuous protocols. Our work provides the first steps towards a systematic theory of CLPTs and paves the way for utilizing statistical field theory techniques for generic complex control landscapes.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.09820 2024-08-19T00:00:00Z 2026-09-05T00:00:00Z Ivan RusskikhBoris VolkovAlexander Pechen

Most general dynamics of an open quantum system is commonly represented by a quantum channel, which is a completely positive trace-preserving map (CPTP or Kraus map). Well-known representations of quantum channels are described by Choi matrices and by Kraus operator-sum representation (OSR). As was shown before, one can use Kraus OSR to parameterize quantum channels by points of a suitable quotient of some complex Stiefel manifold by the action of the unitary group. In this work, we establish a homeomorphism between the topological space of quantum channels and the quotient of the complex Stiefel manifold. This homeomorphism can be applied to various quantum optimization problems. As an example, we apply it to the analysis of extrema points for a wide variety of quantum control objective functionals defined on the complex Stiefel manifolds, including mean value, generation of quantum gates, thermodynamic quantities involving entropy, etc. Finally, a metric on the space of quantum channels induced by the Riemannian metric on the Stiefel manifold is defined, and we show that it is a generalization of the Bures angle between density matrices.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.17610 2024-06-25T00:00:00Z 2024-06-25T00:00:00Z Aritra SarkarAkash KunduMatthew SteinbergSibasish MishraSebastiaan FauquenotTamal AcharyaJarosław A. MiszczakSebastian Feld

In the standard circuit model of quantum computation, the number and quality of the quantum gates composing the circuit influence the runtime and fidelity of the computation. The fidelity of the decomposition of quantum algorithms, represented as unitary matrices, to bounded depth quantum circuits depends strongly on the set of gates available for the decomposition routine. To investigate this dependence, we explore the design space of discrete quantum gate sets and present a software tool for comparative analysis of quantum processing units and control protocols based on their native gates. The evaluation is conditioned on a set of unitary transformations representing target use cases on the quantum processors. The cost function considers three key factors: (i) the statistical distribution of the decomposed circuits' depth, (ii) the statistical distribution of process fidelities for the approximate decomposition, and (iii) the relative novelty of a gate set compared to other gate sets in terms of the aforementioned properties. The developed software, YAQQ (Yet Another Quantum Quantizer), enables the discovery of an optimized set of quantum gates through this tunable joint cost function. To identify these gate sets, we use the novelty search algorithm, circuit decomposition techniques, and stochastic optimization to implement YAQQ within the Qiskit quantum simulator environment. YAQQ exploits reachability tradeoffs conceptually derived from quantum algorithmic information theory. Our results demonstrate the pragmatic application of identifying gate sets that are advantageous to popularly used quantum gate sets in representing quantum algorithms. Consequently, we demonstrate pragmatic use cases of YAQQ in comparing transversal logical gate sets in quantum error correction codes, designing optimal quantum instruction sets, and compiling to specific quantum processors.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.01946 2024-05-03T00:00:00Z 2024-08-06T00:00:00Z Vincent HardelGiovanni ManfrediPaul-Antoine HervieuxRémi Goerlich

We present a new technique for efficiently transitioning a quantum system from an initial to a final stationary state in less time than is required by an adiabatic (quasi-static) process. Our approach makes use of Nelson's stochastic quantization, which represents the quantum system as a classical Brownian process. Thanks to this mathematical analogy, known protocols for classical overdamped systems can be translated into quantum protocols. In particular, one can use classical methods to find optimal quantum protocols that minimize both the time duration and some other cost function to be freely specified. We have applied this method to the time-dependent harmonic oscillator and tested it on two different cost functions: (i) the cumulative energy of the system over time and (ii) the dynamical phase of the wavefunction. In the latter case, it is possible to construct protocols that are "adiabatically optimal", i.e., they minimize their distance from an adiabatic process for a given duration.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.16440 2023-10-25T00:00:00Z 2023-10-25T00:00:00Z Reon IshiiTomotaro NambaHiroyuki KatsukiKenji OhmoriYukiyoshi Ohtsuki

On the basis of optimal control theory, we numerically study how to optimally manipulate molecular vibrational dynamics by using cycle-averaged polarizability interactions induced by mildly intense non-resonant laser (NR) pulses. As the essential elements to be controlled are the probability amplitudes, namely, the populations and the relative phases of the vibrational eigenstates, we consider three fundamental control objectives: selective population transfer, wave packet shaping that requires both population control and relative-phase control, and wave packet deformation suppression that solely requires relative-phase control while avoiding population redistribution. The non-trivial control of wave packet deformation suppression is an extension of our previous study on wave packet spreading suppression. Focusing on the vibrational dynamics in the B state of I2 as a case study, we adopt optimal control simulations and model analyses under the impulsive excitation approximation to systematically examine how to achieve the control objectives with shaped NR pulses. Optimal solutions are always given by NR pulse trains, in which each pulse interval and each pulse intensity are adjusted to cooperate with the vibrational dynamics to effectively utilize the quantum interferences to realize the control objectives with high probability.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.14942 2023-09-26T00:00:00Z 2023-09-26T00:00:00Z Oluwadara OgunkoyaKirsten MorrisDoga Murat Kürkçüoglu

In this study, we explore the universality of Selective Number-dependent Arbitrary Phase (SNAP) and Displacement gates for quantum control in qudit-based systems. However, optimizing the parameters of these gates poses a challenging task. Our main focus is to investigate the sensitivity of training any of the SNAP parameters in the SNAP-Displacement protocol. We analyze conditions that could potentially lead to the Barren Plateau problem in a qudit system and draw comparisons with multi-qubit systems. The parameterized ansatz we consider consists of blocks, where each block is composed of hardware operations, namely SNAP and Displacement gates \cite{fosel2020efficient}. Applying Variational Quantum Algorithm (VQA) with observable and gate cost functions, we utilize techniques similar to those in \cite{mcclean2018barren} and \cite{cerezo2021cost} along with the concept of $t-$design. Through this analysis, we make the following key observations: (a) The trainability of a SNAP-parameter does not exhibit a preference for any particular direction within our cost function landscape, (b) By leveraging the first and second moments properties of Haar measures, we establish new lemmas concerning the expectation of certain polynomial functions, and (c) utilizing these new lemmas, we identify a general condition that indicates an expected trainability advantage in a qudit system when compared to multi-qubit systems.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.03918 2023-08-07T00:00:00Z 2023-08-07T00:00:00Z Igor G. VladimirovIan R. Petersen

This paper considers a risk-sensitive optimal control problem for a field-mediated interconnection of a quantum plant with a coherent (measurement-free) quantum controller. The plant and the controller are multimode open quantum harmonic oscillators governed by linear quantum stochastic differential equations, which are coupled to each other and driven by multichannel quantum Wiener processes modelling the external bosonic fields. The control objective is to internally stabilize the closed-loop system and minimize the infinite-horizon asymptotic growth rate of a quadratic-exponential functional which penalizes the plant variables and the controller output. We obtain first-order necessary conditions of optimality for this problem by computing the partial Frechet derivatives of the cost functional with respect to the energy and coupling matrices of the controller in frequency domain and state space. An infinitesimal equivalence between the risk-sensitive and weighted coherent quantum LQG control problems is also established. In addition to variational methods, we employ spectral factorizations and infinite cascades of auxiliary classical systems. Their truncations are applicable to numerical optimization algorithms (such as the gradient descent) for coherent quantum risk-sensitive feedback synthesis.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.08479 2023-07-17T00:00:00Z 2023-07-17T00:00:00Z Vadim PetruhanovAlexander Pechen

The GRadient Ascent Pulse Engineering (GRAPE) method is widely used for optimization in quantum control. GRAPE is gradient search method based on exact expressions for gradient of the control objective. It has been applied to coherently controlled closed and open quantum systems. In this work, we adopt GRAPE method for optimizing objective functionals for open quantum systems driven by both coherent and incoherent controls. In our case, the tailored or engineered environment acts on the system as control via it time-dependent decoherence rates $γ_k(t)$ or, equivalently, via it spectral density of the environment $n_ω(t)$. To develop GRAPE approach for this problem, we compute gradient of various objectives for general N-level open quantum systems both for piecewise class of control. The case of a single qubit is considered in details and solved analytically. For this case, an explicit analytical expression for evolution and objective gradient is obtained via diagonalization of a $3\times 3$ matrix determining the system's dynamics in the Bloch ball. The diagonalization is obtained by solving a cubic equation via Cardano's method. The efficiency of the algorithm is demonstrated through numerical simulations for the state-to-state transition problem and its complexity is estimated.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03355 2023-04-06T00:00:00Z 2023-12-03T00:00:00Z Boris VolkovAlexander Pechen

Quantum control is necessary for a variety of modern quantum technologies as it allows to optimally manipulate quantum systems. An important problem in quantum control is to establish whether the control objective functional has trapping behaviour or no, namely if it has or no traps -- controls from which it is difficult to escape by local search optimization methods. Higher order traps were previously introduced in [A. N. Pechen, D. J. Tannor, "Are there traps in quantum control landscapes?", Phys. Rev. Lett., 106 (2011), 120402], where 3-rd order traps were found. In this note we show that traps of arbitrarily high order exist for controllable quantum systems with special symmetry in the Hamiltonian.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.14364 2023-02-28T00:00:00Z 2023-02-28T00:00:00Z Vadim PetruhanovAlexander Pechen

In this work, we consider an environment formed by incoherent photons as a resource for controlling open quantum systems via an incoherent control. We exploit a coherent control in the Hamiltonian and an incoherent control in the dissipator which induces the time-dependent decoherence rates $γ_k(t)$ (via time-dependent spectral density of incoherent photons) for generation of single-qubit gates for a two-level open quantum system which evolves according to the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) master equation with time-dependent coefficients determined by these coherent and incoherent controls. The control problem is formulated as minimization of the objective functional, which is the sum of Hilbert-Schmidt norms between four fixed basis states evolved under the GKSL master equation with controls and the same four states evolved under the ideal gate transformation. The exact expression for the gradient of the objective functional with respect to piecewise constant controls is obtained. Subsequent optimization is performed using a gradient type algorithm with an adaptive step size that leads to oscillating behaviour of the gradient norm vs iterations. Optimal trajectories in the Bloch ball for various initial states are computed. A relation of quantum gate generation with optimization on complex Stiefel manifolds is discussed. We develop methodology and apply it here for unitary gates as a testing example. The next step is to apply the method for generation of non-unitary processes and to multi-level quantum systems.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.02690 2023-01-06T00:00:00Z 2023-01-06T00:00:00Z Abdullah Ash SakiAmara KatabarwaSalonik ReschGeorge Umbrarescu

In the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, quantum error mitigation will be a necessary tool to extract useful performance out of quantum devices. However, there is a big gap between the noise models often assumed by error mitigation techniques and the actual noise on quantum devices. As a consequence, there arises a gap between the theoretical expectations of the techniques and their everyday performance. Cloud users of quantum devices in particular, who often take the devices as they are, feel this gap the most. How should they parametrize their uncertainty in the usefulness of these techniques and be able to make judgement calls between resources required to implement error mitigation and the accuracy required at the algorithmic level? To answer the first question, we introduce hypothesis testing within the framework of quantum error mitigation and for the second question, we propose an inclusive figure of merit that accounts for both resource requirement and mitigation efficiency of an error mitigation implementation. The figure of merit is useful to weigh the trade-offs between the scalability and accuracy of various error mitigation methods. Finally, using the hypothesis testing and the figure of merit, we experimentally evaluate $16$ error mitigation pipelines composed of singular methods such as zero noise extrapolation, randomized compilation, measurement error mitigation, dynamical decoupling, and mitigation with estimation circuits. In total our data involved running $275,640$ circuits on two IBM quantum computers.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.10100 2022-12-20T00:00:00Z 2025-02-24T00:00:00Z Qiongyuan WuMario A. CiampiniMauro PaternostroMatteo Carlesso

Manipulating quantum systems undergoing non-Gaussian dynamics in a fast and accurate manner is becoming fundamental to many quantum applications. Here, we focus on classical and quantum protocols transferring a state across a double-well potential. The classical protocols are achieved by deforming the potential, while the quantum ones are assisted by a counter-diabatic driving. We show that quantum protocols perform more quickly and accurately. Finally, we design a figure of merit for the performance of the transfer protocols -- namely, the protocol grading -- that depends only on fundamental physical quantities, and which accounts for the quantum speed limit, the fidelity and the thermodynamic of the process. We test the protocol grading with classical and quantum protocols, and show that quantum protocols have higher protocol grading than the classical ones.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.02521 2022-05-05T00:00:00Z 2022-10-17T00:00:00Z Oleg V. MorzhinAlexander Pechen

This article considers some control problems for closed and open two-level quantum systems. The closed system's dynamics is governed by the Schrödinger equation with coherent control. The open system's dynamics is governed by the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad master equation whose Hamiltonian depends on coherent control and superoperator of dissipation depends on incoherent control. For the closed system, we consider the problem for generation of the phase shift gate for some values of phases and final times for which numerically show that zero coherent control, which is a stationary point of the objective functional, is not optimal; it gives an example of subtle point for practical solving problems of quantum control. For the open system, in the two-stage method which was developed for generic N-level quantum systems in [Pechen A., Phys. Rev. A., 84, 042106 (2011)] for approximate generation of a target density matrix, here we consider the two-level systems for which modify the first ("incoherent") stage by numerically optimizing piecewise constant incoherent control instead of using constant incoherent control analytically computed using eigenvalues of the target density matrix. Exact analytical formulas are derived for the system's state evolution, the objective functions and their gradients for the modified first stage. These formulas are applied in the two-step gradient projection method. The numerical simulations show that the modified first stage's duration can be significantly less than the unmodified first stage's duration, but at the cost of optimization in the class of piecewise constant controls.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.07889 2022-02-16T00:00:00Z 2022-02-16T00:00:00Z Zhi-Cheng ShiCheng ZhangDu RanYan XiaReuven IanconescuAharon FriedmanX. X. YiShi-Biao Zheng

In this work, we propose a composite pulses scheme by modulating phases to achieve high fidelity population transfer in three-level systems. To circumvent the obstacle that not enough variables are exploited to eliminate the systematic errors in the transition probability, we put forward a cost function to find the optimal value. The cost function is independently constructed either in ensuring an accurate population of the target state, or in suppressing the population of the leakage state, or both of them. The results demonstrate that population transfer is implemented with high fidelity even when existing the deviations in the coupling coefficients. Furthermore, our composite pulses scheme can be extensible to arbitrarily long pulse sequences. As an example, we employ the composite pulses sequence for achieving the three-atom singlet state in an atom-cavity system with ultrahigh fidelity. The final singlet state shows robustness against deviations and is not seriously affected by waveform distortions. Also, the singlet state maintains a high fidelity under the decoherence environment.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.09306 2021-11-17T00:00:00Z 2022-10-21T00:00:00Z Yaroslav HerasymenkoIgor V. GornyiYuval Gefen

The challenge of preparing a system in a designated state spans diverse facets of quantum mechanics. To complete this task of steering quantum states, one can employ quantum control through a sequence of generalized measurements which direct the system towards the target state. In an active version of this protocol, the obtained measurement readouts are used to adjust the protocol on-the-go. This enables a sped-up performance relative to the passive version of the protocol, where no active adjustments are included. In this work, we consider such active measurement-driven steering as applied to the challenging case of many-body quantum systems. For helpful decision-making strategies, we offer Hilbert-space-orientation techniques, comparable to those used in navigation. The first one is to tie the active-decision protocol to the greedy accumulation of the cost function, such as the target state fidelity. We show the potential of a significant speedup, employing this greedy approach to a broad family of Matrix Product State targets. For system sizes considered here, an average value of the speedup factor $f$ across this family settles about $20$, for some targets even reaching a few thousands. We also identify a subclass of Matrix Product State targets, for which the value of $f$ increases with system size. In addition to the greedy approach, the second wayfinding technique is to map out the available measurement actions onto a Quantum State Machine. A decision-making protocol can be based on such a representation, using semiclassical heuristics. This State Machine-based approach can be applied to a more restricted set of targets, sometimes offering advantages over the cost function-based method. We give an example of a W-state preparation which is accelerated with this method by $f\simeq3.5$, outperforming the greedy protocol for this target.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.02849 2021-10-06T00:00:00Z 2021-10-06T00:00:00Z Paul KairysTravis S. Humble

Optimal control theory provides a framework for numerical discovery of device controls that implement quantum logic gates, but common objective functions used for optimization often assign arbitrarily high costs to otherwise useful controls. We propose a framework for designing objective functions that permit novel gate designs such as echo pulses or locally-equivalent gates. We use numerical simulations to demonstrate the efficacy of the new objective functions by designing microwave-only pulses that act as entangling gates for superconducting transmon architectures. We observe that the proposed objective functions lead to higher fidelity controls in fewer optimization iterations than obtainable by traditional objective functions.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.12441 2021-08-27T00:00:00Z 2021-08-27T00:00:00Z Ilia KhaitJuan CarrasquillaDvira Segal

Identifying optimal thermodynamical processes has been the essence of thermodynamics since its inception. Here, we show that differentiable programming (DP), a machine learning (ML) tool, can be employed to optimize finite-time thermodynamical processes in a quantum thermal machine. We consider the paradigmatic quantum Otto engine with a time-dependent harmonic oscillator as its working fluid, and build upon shortcut-to-adiabaticity (STA) protocols. We formulate the STA driving protocol as a constrained optimization task and apply DP to find optimal driving profiles for an appropriate figure of merit. Our ML scheme discovers profiles for the compression and expansion strokes that are superior to previously-suggested protocols. Moreover, using our ML algorithm we show that a previously-employed, intuitive energetic cost of the STA driving suffers from a fundamental flaw, which we resolve with an alternative construction for the cost function. Our method and results demonstrate that ML is beneficial both for solving hard-constrained quantum control problems and for devising and assessing their theoretical groundwork.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.16817 2020-06-29T00:00:00Z 2020-07-08T00:00:00Z Tejas Shetty

A great number of quantum control papers have used one of the variants of the monotonically convergent variational control algorithm of Krotov (as described in Maday and Turinici (2003), Tannor et al. (1992), Zhu and Rabitz (1998), etc). The paper "Speeding up Thermalisation via Open Quantum System Variational Optimisation" by N, Suri, et al. [EPJST 227, 203 -216 (2018), arXiv:1711.08776] provides us a way of carrying out Krotov algorithm for open quantum systems. We shall prove the Theorem 1 of the paper, greatly expanding upon the brief treatment given in appendix 1 of the same.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.01068 2020-02-04T00:00:00Z 2020-05-16T00:00:00Z Jiahao YaoMarin BukovLin Lin

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA), as a hybrid quantum/classical algorithm, has received much interest recently. QAOA can also be viewed as a variational ansatz for quantum control. However, its direct application to emergent quantum technology encounters additional physical constraints: (i) the states of the quantum system are not observable; (ii) obtaining the derivatives of the objective function can be computationally expensive or even inaccessible in experiments, and (iii) the values of the objective function may be sensitive to various sources of uncertainty, as is the case for noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. Taking such constraints into account, we show that policy-gradient-based reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are well suited for optimizing the variational parameters of QAOA in a noise-robust fashion, opening up the way for developing RL techniques for continuous quantum control. This is advantageous to help mitigate and monitor the potentially unknown sources of errors in modern quantum simulators. We analyze the performance of the algorithm for quantum state transfer problems in single- and multi-qubit systems, subject to various sources of noise such as error terms in the Hamiltonian, or quantum uncertainty in the measurement process. We show that, in noisy setups, it is capable of outperforming state-of-the-art existing optimization algorithms.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.09216 2019-09-19T00:00:00Z 2019-09-19T00:00:00Z Alexander PechenNikolay Il'in

In this work we study extrema of objective functionals for ultrafast manipulation by a qubit. Traps are extrema of the objective functionals which are optimal for manipulation by quantum systems only locally but not globally. Much effort in prior works was devoted to the analysis of traps for quantum systems controlled by long enough laser pulses and, for example, manipulation by a qubit with long control pulses was shown to be trap-free. Ultrafast femtosecond and attosecond control becomes now widely applicable that motivates the necessity for the analysis of traps on the ultrafast time scale. We do such analysis for a qubit and show that ultrafast state transfer in a qubit remains trap-free for a wide range of the initial and final states of the qubit. We prove that for this range the probability of transition between the initial and the final states has a saddle but has no traps.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.06283 2019-08-17T00:00:00Z 2019-09-14T00:00:00Z Priya BatraV. R. KrithikaT. S. Mahesh

Quantum optimal control involves setting up an objective function that evaluates the quality of an operator representing the realized process w.r.t. the target process. Here we propose a stronger objective function which incorporates not only the target operator but also a set of its orthogonal operators. We find significantly superior convergence of optimization routines with the combined influences of all the operators. We refer to this method as the $\textit{push-pull}$ optimization. In particular, we describe adopting the push-pull optimization to a gradient based approach and a variational-principle based approach. We carry out extensive numerical simulations of the push-pull optimization of quantum controls on a pair of Ising coupled qubits. Finally, we demonstrate its experimental application by preparing a long-lived singlet-order in a two-qubit system using NMR techniques.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.09302 2017-07-28T00:00:00Z 2017-07-28T00:00:00Z Igor G. VladimirovIan R. PetersenMatthew R. James

This paper is concerned with risk-sensitive performance analysis for linear quantum stochastic systems interacting with external bosonic fields. We consider a cost functional in the form of the exponential moment of the integral of a quadratic polynomial of the system variables over a bounded time interval. An integro-differential equation is obtained for the time evolution of this quadratic-exponential functional, which is compared with the original quantum risk-sensitive performance criterion employed previously for measurement-based quantum control and filtering problems. Using multi-point Gaussian quantum states for the past history of the system variables and their first four moments, we discuss a quartic approximation of the cost functional and its infinite-horizon asymptotic behaviour. The computation of the asymptotic growth rate of this approximation is reduced to solving two algebraic Lyapunov equations. We also outline further approximations of the cost functional, based on higher-order cumulants and their growth rates, together with large deviations estimates. For comparison, an auxiliary classical Gaussian Markov diffusion process is considered in a complex Euclidean space which reproduces the quantum system variables at the level of covariances but has different higher-order moments relevant to the risk-sensitive criteria. The results of the paper are also demonstrated by a numerical example and may find applications to coherent quantum risk-sensitive control problems, where the plant and controller form a fully quantum closed-loop system, and other settings with nonquadratic cost functionals.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.08822 2015-09-29T00:00:00Z 2015-10-26T00:00:00Z Jukka KiukasDaniel Burgarth

We demonstrate how quantum optimal control can be used to enhance quantum resources for bipartite one-way protocols, specifically EPR-steering with qubit measurements. Steering is relevant for one-sided device-independent key distribution, the realistic implementations of which necessitate the study of noisy scenarios. So far mainly the case of imperfect detection efficiency has been considered; here we look at the effect of dynamical noise responsible for decoherence and dissipation. In order to set up the optimisation, we map the steering problem into the equivalent joint measurability problem, and employ quantum resource-theoretic robustness monotones from that context. The advantage is that incompatibility (hence steerability) with arbitrary pairs of noisy qubit measurements has been completely characterised through an analytical expression, which can be turned into a computable cost function with exact gradient. Furthermore, dynamical loss of incompatibility has recently been illustrated using these monotones. We demonstrate resource control numerically using a special gradient-based software, showing, in particular, the advantage over naive control with cost function chosen as a fidelity in relation to a specific target. We subsequently illustrate the complexity of the control landscapes with a simplified two-variable scheme. The results contribute to the theoretical understanding of the limitations in realistic implementations of quantum information protocols, also paving way to practical use of the rather abstract quantum resource theories.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.5287 2014-12-17T00:00:00Z 2015-05-03T00:00:00Z Re-Bing WuConstantin BrifMatthew R. JamesHerschel Rabitz

In quantum optimal control theory, kinematic bounds are the minimum and maximum values of the control objective achievable for any physically realizable system dynamics. For a given initial state of the system, these bounds depend on the nature and state of the controller. We consider a general situation where the controlled quantum system is coupled to both an external classical field (referred to as a classical controller) and an auxiliary quantum system (referred to as a quantum controller). In this general situation, the kinematic bound is between the classical kinematic bound (CKB), corresponding to the case when only the classical controller is available, and the quantum kinematic bound (QKB), corresponding to the ultimate physical limit of the objective's value. Specifically, when the control objective is the expectation value of a quantum observable (a Hermitian operator on the system's Hilbert space), the QKBs are the minimum and maximum eigenvalues of this operator. We present, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the necessary and sufficient conditions for surpassing the CKB and reaching the QKB, through the use of a quantum controller. The general conditions are illustrated by examples in which the system and controller are initially in thermal states. The obtained results provide a basis for the design of quantum controllers capable of maximizing the control yield and reaching the ultimate physical limit.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.5617 2012-11-23T00:00:00Z 2012-11-23T00:00:00Z Srinivas SridharanMasahiro YanagisawaJoshua Combes

In this article we analyze the optimal control strategy for rotating a monitored qubit from an initial pure state to an orthogonal state in minimum time. This strategy is described for two different cost functions of interest which do not have the usual regularity properties. Hence, as classically smooth cost functions may not exist, we interpret these functions as viscosity solutions to the optimal control problem. Specifically we prove their existence and uniqueness in this weak-solution setting. In addition, we also give bounds on the time optimal control to prepare any pure state from a mixed state.