Abstract A variety of tasks in quantum control, ranging from purification and cooling to quantum stabilisation and open-system simulation, rely on the ability to implement a target quantum channel over a specified time interval within prescribed accuracy. This can be achieved by engineering a suitable unitary dynamics of the system of interest along with its environment, which, depending on the available level of control, is fully or partly exploited as a coherent quantum controller . After formalising a controllability framework for completely positive trace-preserving quantum dynamics, we provide sufficient conditions on the environment state and dimension that allow for the realisation of relevant classes of quantum channels, including extreme channels, stochastic unitaries or simply any channel. The results hinge on generalisations of Stinespring’s dilation via a subsystem principle . In the process, we show that a conjecture by Lloyd on the minimal dimension of the environment required for arbitrary open-system simulation, albeit formally disproved, can in fact be salvaged, provided that classical randomisation is included among the available resources. Existing measurement-based feedback protocols for universal simulation, dynamical decoupling and dissipative state preparation are recast within the proposed coherent framework as concrete applications, and the resources they employ discussed in the light of the general results.
Abstract A variety of tasks in quantum control, ranging from purification and cooling to quantum stabilisation and open-system simulation, rely on the ability to implement a target quantum channel over a specified time interval within prescribed accuracy. This can be achieved by engineering a suitable unitary dynamics of the system of interest along with its environment, which, depending on the available level of control, is fully or partly exploited as a coherent quantum controller . After formalising a controllability framework for completely positive trace-preserving quantum dynamics, we provide sufficient conditions on the environment state and dimension that allow for the realisation of relevant classes of quantum channels, including extreme channels, stochastic unitaries or simply any channel. The results hinge on generalisations of Stinespring’s dilation via a subsystem principle . In the process, we show that a conjecture by Lloyd on the minimal dimension of the environment required for arbitrary open-system simulation, albeit formally disproved, can in fact be salvaged, provided that classical randomisation is included among the available resources. Existing measurement-based feedback protocols for universal simulation, dynamical decoupling and dissipative state preparation are recast within the proposed coherent framework as concrete applications, and the resources they employ discussed in the light of the general results.
Since no physical system can ever be completely isolated from its environment, the study of open quantum systems is pivotal to reliably and accurately control complex quantum systems. In practice, reliability of the control field needs to be confirmed via certification of the target evolution while accuracy requires the derivation of high-fidelity control schemes in the presence of decoherence. In the first part of this thesis an algebraic framework is presented that allows to determine the minimal requirements on the unique characterisation of arbitrary unitary gates in open quantum systems, independent on the particular physical implementation of the employed quantum device. To this end, a set of theorems is devised that can be used to assess whether a given set of input states on a quantum channel is sufficient to judge whether a desired unitary gate is realised. This allows to determine the minimal input for such a task, which proves to be, quite remarkably, independent of system size. These results allow to elucidate the fundamental limits regarding certification and tomography of open quantum systems. The combination of these insights with state-of-the-art Monte Carlo process certification techniques permits a significant improvement of the scaling when certifying arbitrary unitary gates. This improvement is not only restricted to quantum information devices where the basic information carrier is the qubit but it also extends to systems where the fundamental informational entities can be of arbitary dimensionality, the so-called qudits. The second part of this thesis concerns the impact of these findings from the point of view of Optimal Control Theory (OCT). OCT for quantum systems utilises concepts from engineering such as feedback and optimisation to engineer constructive and destructive interferences in order to steer a physical process in a desired direction. It turns out that the aforementioned mathematical findings allow to deduce novel optimisation functionals that significantly reduce not only the required memory for numerical control algorithms but also the total CPU time required to obtain a certain fidelity for the optimised process. The thesis concludes by discussing two problems of fundamental interest in quantum information processing from the point of view of optimal control the preparation of pure states and the implementation of unitary gates in open quantum systems. For both cases specific physical examples are considered: for the former the vibrational cooling of molecules via optical pumping and for the latter a superconducting phase qudit implementation. In particular, it is illustrated how features of the environment can be exploited to reach the desired targets.
All physical quantum systems are in contact with the external world which is inevitably a source of noise. It is therefore necessary to take into account this dissipation when designing controls that accomplish useful tasks in quantum information processing. This thesis is on that overlap of open quantum systems and control theory; it looks at what dynamics can happen with the use of external driving, and how this driving can be chosen to accomplish a desired goal. The first result looks at how a given quantum dissipator can be manipulated, using coherent controls, into replicating the action of a different type of noise. This results in no-go theorems for how noise can be transformed based on its isotropy, with applications in simulating open systems. Another way of doing simulations is to use only unitary dynamics over the system and a finite dimensional ancilla, and it is proved that there always exists a dilation Hamiltonian that replicates the noisy dynamics continuously in time. This also highlights the fact that adding controls on noise can result in a different evolution than if the controls were done on the under- lying system-environment level. A conjecture is introduced and studied which states that both approaches are equivalent in the special case of the controls commuting with the Lindbladian. A way around this difficulty is to use a quantum system to compute in situ which controls are best for achieving a desired task on itself. This problem is studied in the context of reaching entangling gates on a quantum simulator in order to upgrade it into a quantum computer. The experimental cost of doing so is found to be polynomial in the number of qubits in simulations. The same underlying principle is also used to find error correcting codes tailored to the dissipation in a system.
Control of open quantum systems is an essential ingredient to the realization of contemporary quantum science and technology. We demonstrate such control by employing a thermodynamically consistent framework, taking into account the fact that the drive can modify the interaction with environment. Such an effect is incorporated within the dynamical equation, leading to control dependent dissipation, this relation serves as the key element for open system control. Thermodynamics of the control process is reflected by a unidirectional flow of energy to the environment resulting in large entropy production. The control paradigm is displayed by analyzing entropy changing state to state transformations, such as heating and cooling. In addition, the generation of quantum gates under dissipative conditions is demonstrated for both non-unitary reset maps with complete memory loss and a universal set of single and double qubit unitary gates.
Due to increasing demands on speed and security of data processing, along with requirements on measurement precision in fundamental research, quantum phenomena are expected to play an increasing role in future technologies. Special attention must hence be paid to omnipresent decoherence effects, which hamper quantumness. Their consequence is always a deviation of the quantum state evolution (error) with respect to the expected unitary evolution if these effects are absent. In operational tasks such as the preparation, transformation, transmission, and detection of quantum states, these effects are detrimental and must be suppressed by strategies known as dynamical decoupling, or the more general dynamical control by modulation developed by us. The underlying dynamics must be Zeno-like, yielding suppressed coupling to the bath. There are, however, tasks which cannot be implemented by unitary evolution, in particular those involving a change of the system’s state entropy. Such tasks necessitate efficient coupling to a bath for their implementation. Examples include the use of measurements to cool (purify) a system, to equilibrate it, or to harvest and convert energy from the environment. If the underlying dynamics is anti-Zeno like, enhancement of this coupling to the bath will occur and thereby facilitate the task, as discovered by us. A general task may also require state and energy transfer, or entanglement of noninteracting parties via shared modes of the bath which call for maximizing the shared (two-partite) couplings with the bath, but suppressing the single-partite couplings. For such tasks, a more subtle interplay of Zeno and anti-Zeno dynamics may be optimal. We have therefore constructed a general framework for optimizing the way a system interacts with its environment to achieve a desired task. This optimization consists in adjusting a given “score” that quantifies the success of the task, such as the targeted fidelity, purity, entropy, entanglement, or energy by dynamical modification of the system-bath coupling spectrum on demand.
Accurate modeling of quantum systems interacting with environments requires addressing non-unitary dynamics, which significantly complicates computational approaches. In this work, we enhance an open quantum system (OQS) theory using density-matrix purification, enabling a unitary description of dynamics by entangling the system with an environment of equal dimension. We first establish the connection between density-matrix purification and conventional OQS methods. We then demonstrate the standalone applicability of purification theory by deriving system-environment interactions from fundamental design principles. Using model systems, we show that the purification approach extends beyond the complete positivity condition and effectively models both Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics. Finally, we implement density-matrix purification on a quantum simulator, illustrating its capability to map non-unitary OQS dynamics onto a unitary framework suitable for quantum computers.
Quantum engineering has seen rapid growth in the past two decades. Physicists, mathematicians and engineers have been working in unison to control a number of diverse systems in the quantum regime. Quantum control involving feedback has become particularly topical, as using information gained from a system can lead to more stable operation of a control protocol. Quantum feedback can be split into two paradigms: measurement based feedback and coherent feedback. Although it is increasingly evident that retaining the coherence of the feedback signal provides an intrinsic advantage over measurement-based feedback, coherent feedback is still a new paradigm. In particular, there are a limited number of options for coherently estimating a state within a feedback loop. As a step towards better understanding and implementation of quantum feedback, this thesis reports on modelling, estimation and control of quantum systems. The first topic is physical realisability of a variety of quantum systems, especially finite level systems and their outgrowths. Bilinear quantum stochastic differential equations (QSDEs) have to be employed to characterise these systems, which is a significant complement to the previous work on linear QSDEs. In light of the fact that direct and indirect couplings play a vital role in quantum network and control, we also provide state-space models for different classes of coupled open quantum systems incorporating both bidirectional and directional interactions. The second topic is coherent observers and optimal filtering. It is well established that classically estimation using the Kalman filter can provide improved performance over direct feedback schemes, and similar demonstrations have been performed for measurement-based quantum feedback. In this thesis I present coherent observers, including least mean squares estimators, which are driven by the coherent output of a specified quantum plant and designed such that some subset of the observer and plant's expectation values converge in the asymptotic limit. Not only can estimators "observe" mean quantities of quantum plant, but also they can "estimate" quantum correlations such as entanglement. This is of much importance to coherent feedback design in the absence of measurement steps without loss of fidelity. Last but not least, several topics regarding stabilisation and control design of quantum systems are discussed in my thesis. To be specific, tools for quantum stability analysis (e.g. Lyapunov conditions) are provided. Both measurement-based feedback and coherent feedback control design are taken into account. A measurement-based optimal controller for opto-mechanical systems aimed at synchronising different mechanical modes is presented, which is application-oriented. Moreover, A general observer-based coherent feedback control framework is studied, and I demonstrate a pole-placement approach via coherent observers that can be applied to various scenarios.