High-quality control is a fundamental requirement for quantum computation, but practically it is often hampered by the presence of various types of noises, which can be static or time dependent. In many realistic scenarios, multiple noise sources coexist, and their resulting noise effects need to be corrected to a sufficient order, posing significant challenges for the design of effective robust control methods. Here, we explore the method of robust quantum optimal control to generally tackle the problem of resisting multiple noises from a complicated noise environment. Specifically, we confine our analysis to classical stochastic noises that can be described by classical noise models. This method employs a gradient-based multiobjective optimization algorithm to maximize the control figure of merit, and meanwhile to minimize the perturbative effects of the noises that are allowed for. To verify its effectiveness, we apply this method to a number of examples, including robust entangling gate in a trapped-ion system and robust controlled-
Z gate in superconducting qubits, under commonly encountered static and time-dependent noises. Our simulation results reveal that robust optimal control can find smooth, robust pulses that can simultaneously resist several noises and thus achieve high-fidelity gates. Therefore, we expect that this method will find wide applications on current noisy quantum computing devices.
Quantum systems are inherently sensitive to environmental noise and imperfections in external control fields, which pose a significant challenge for the practical implementation of quantum technologies. These noise sources degrade the fidelity of quantum gates, making their mitigation a key requirement for realizing reliable quantum computing. In this study, we apply Optimal Control Theory (OCT) within a thermodynamically consistent Markovian framework to design high-fidelity quantum gates in the presence of thermal relaxation. Such a description is essential for realistic modeling and optimization of noisy quantum gates in near-term quantum technologies, where strong control fields and thermal environments act simultaneously. Our approach combines OCT with a control-dependent dissipative generator derived from the non-adiabatic master equation framework based on time-dependent invariants of the free evolution. As a result, the driving fields modify both the unitary and dissipative parts of the evolution. We implement the scheme for one- and two-qubit gates embedded in larger Hilbert spaces and compare direct-control and ancilla-assisted architectures. Using logical-subspace-resolved diagnostics, we quantify how the optimized dynamics redistributes the dissipative action between logical and ancillary sectors in the model systems studied here. In particular, we show that ancilla-assisted control can reduce the effective thermal-noise burden on the logical subspace in the relevant parameter regime, while direct control remains the most effective route when available. High-precision propagation of the full open-system dynamics reveals substantial fidelity improvements, in some cases by orders of magnitude, while clarifying the limits of mitigation at large relaxation rates and temperatures.
We address the experimentally relevant problem of robust mitigation of dephasing noise acting on a qubit. We first present an extension of the method of Kuopanportti et al. [Phys. Rev. A 77, 032334 (2008)] for representing $1/{\ensuremath{\omega}}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ noise to the efficient representation of arbitrary Markovian noise. We then add qubit control pulses to enable the design of numerically optimized, two-dimensional, bounded amplitude control functions capable of decoupling the qubit from the dephasing effects of a broad variety of Markovian noise spectral densities during one- and two-qubit quantum operations. We illustrate the method with development of numerically optimized control pulse sequences that minimize decoherence due to a combination of $1/\ensuremath{\omega}$ and constant-offset noise sources. Comparison with the performance of standard dynamical decoupling protocols shows that the numerically optimized pulse sequences are considerably more robust with respect to zero-frequency noise. Application to the mitigation of dephasing noise on spin qubits in silicon indicates that high-fidelity quantum gates may, in principle, be implemented for such qubits with the assistance of current pulse-generation technology.
Resisting diverse noise effects is crucial for the accurate manipulation of quantum systems. For static or slowly varying noises, many efficient noise mitigation strategies have been developed, such as composite pulses and dynamical decoupling. However, for fast fluctuating noise in the Markovian limit, whether and to what extent coherent quantum control can enhance quantum engineering tasks remains unclear and less explored. Here, we propose a robust quantum optimal control method to tackle Markovian noises. The basic idea is that, regarding the Markovian noise channel as perturbation, we quantitatively characterize the noise-induced error evolution by the perturbative expansion term, and then take them as the objective functions to be suppressed. During optimization, the optimal controls are obtained by maximizing the control target function and meanwhile minimizing the perturbative terms due to Markovian noise order by order. As demonstration examples, we first apply our method to quantum state transfer tasks on two-level and three-level $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ systems, then use it to design quantum gates in two-level and three-level ladder systems, all under Markovian noises. The simulation results illustrate that our method can notably enhance quantum state transfer fidelities and have very limited improvement on gate fidelities. The method presented here is versatile and can be extended to enhance the performance of various control tasks under Markovian noise in multilevel or multiqubit quantum systems.
We consider the basic quantum-control task of obtaining a target unitary operation (i.e., a quantum gate) via control fields that couple to the quantum system and are chosen to best mitigate errors resulting from time-dependent noise, which frustrate this task. We allow for two sources of noise: fluctuations in the control fields and fluctuations arising from the environment. We address the issue of control-error mitigation by means of a formulation rooted in the Martin-Siggia-Rose (MSR) approach to noisy, classical statistical-mechanical systems. To do this, we express the noisy control problem in terms of a path integral, and integrate out the noise to arrive at an effective, noise-free description. We characterize the degree of success in error mitigation via a fidelity metric, which characterizes the proximity of the sought-after evolution to ones that are achievable in the presence of noise. Error mitigation is then best accomplished by applying the optimal control fields, i.e., those that maximize the fidelity subject to any constraints obeyed by the control fields. To make connection with MSR, we reformulate the fidelity in terms of a Schwinger-Keldysh (SK) path integral, with the added twist that the ``forward'' and ``backward'' branches of the time contour are inequivalent with respect to the noise. The present approach naturally and readily allows the incorporation of constraints on the control fields---a useful feature in practice, given that constraints feature in all real experiments. In addition to addressing the noise average of the fidelity, we consider its full probability distribution. The information content present in this distribution allows one to address more complex questions regarding error mitigation, including, in principle, questions of extreme value statistics, i.e., the likelihood and impact of rare instances of the fidelity and how to harness or cope with their influence. We illustrate this MSR-SK reformulation by considering a model system consisting of a single spin-
s freedom (with
s arbitrary), focusing on the case of
1/f noise in the weak-noise limit. We discover that optimal error mitigation is accomplished via a universal control field protocol that is valid for all
s, from the qubit (i.e.,
s=1/2) case to the classical (i.e., $s\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$) limit. In principle, this MSR-SK approach provides a transparent framework for addressing quantum control in the presence of noise for systems of arbitrary complexity.
We address the experimentally relevant problem of robust mitigation of dephasing noise acting on a qubit. We first present an extension of a method for representing
1/ωα noise developed by Kuopanportti et al. to the efficient representation of arbitrary Markovian noise. We then add qubit control pulses to enable the design of numerically optimized, two-dimensional control functions with bounded amplitude, that are capable of decoupling the qubit from the dephasing effects of a broad variety of Markovian noise spectral densities during arbitrary one qubit quantum operations. We illustrate the method with development of numerically optimized control pulse sequences that minimize decoherence due to a combination of
1/ω and constant offset noise sources. Comparison with the performance of standard dynamical decoupling protocols shows that the numerically optimized pulse sequences are considerably more robust with respect to the noise offset, rendering them attractive for application to situations where homogeneous dephasing noise sources are accompanied by some extent of heterogeneous dephasing. Application to the mitigation of dephasing noise on spin qubits in silicon indicates that high fidelity single qubit gates are possible with current pulse generation technology.