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arXiv:2411.10840

State-Constrained Optimal Control for Coherence Preservation in Multi-Level Open Quantum Systems

Nahid Binandeh Dehaghani, A. Pedro Aguiar, Rafał Wiśniewski

Published Nov 16, 2024• 0 citations
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Abstract

This paper addresses the optimal control of quantum coherence in multi-level systems, modeled by the Lindblad master equation, which captures both unitary evolution and environmental dissipation. We develop an energy minimization framework to control the evolution of a qutrit (three-level) quantum system while preserving coherence between states. The control problem is formulated using Pontryagin's Minimum Principle in the form of Gamkrelidze, incorporating state constraints to ensure coherence remains within desired bounds. Our approach accounts for Markovian decoherence, demonstrating that the Lindblad operator is non-unital, which reflects the irreversible decay processes inherent in the system. The results provide insights into effectively maintaining quantum coherence in the presence of dissipation.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2411.10840

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This paper addresses the optimal control of quantum coherence in multi-level systems, modeled by the Lindblad master equation, which captures both unitary evolution and environmental dissipation. We develop an energy minimization framework to control the evolution of a qutrit (three-level) quantum system while preserving coherence between states. The control problem is formulated using Pontryagin's Minimum Principle in the form of Gamkrelidze, incorporating state constraints to ensure coherence remains within desired bounds. Our approach accounts for Markovian decoherence, demonstrating that the Lindblad operator is non-unital, which reflects the irreversible decay processes inherent in the system. The results provide insights into effectively maintaining quantum coherence in the presence of dissipation.
This paper addresses the optimal control of quantum coherence in multi-level systems, modeled by the Lindblad master equation, which captures both unitary evolution and environmental dissipation. We develop an energy minimization framework to control the evolution of a qutrit (three-level) quantum system while preserving coherence between states. The control problem is formulated using Pontryagin’s Minimum Principle in the form of Gamkrelidze, incorporating state constraints to ensure coherence remains within desired bounds. Our approach accounts for Markovian decoherence, demonstrating that the Lindblad operator is non-unital, which reflects the irreversible decay processes inherent in the system. The results provide insights into effectively maintaining quantum coherence in the presence of dissipation.
In this work, we address the problem of maximizing fidelity in a quantum state transformation process controlled in such a way as to keep decoherence within given bounds. We consider a three-level Λ-type atom subjected to Markovian decoherence characterized by non-unital decoherence channels. We introduce fidelity as the performance index for the quantum state transformation process since the goal is to maximize the similarity of the final state density operator with the one of the desired target state. We formulate the quantum optimal control problem with state constraints where the latter reflect the fact that the decoherence level remains within a pre-defined bound. Optimality conditions of Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle in Gamkrelidze’s form are given. These provide a complete set of relations enabling the computation of the optimal control strategy. This is a novel approach in the context of quantum systems.
Optimal control in open quantum systems is considered, with a focus on a two-level logical qubit system whose time evolution is governed by Markovian dynamics described within the Lindblad (GKSL) formalism. The objective is to minimize the net heat transferred to the environment during the transition while explicitly accounting for the work performed by the external control field. In this context, we formulate a variational optimal control framework for minimizing dissipated heat under fidelity constraints, which establishes existence under standard assumptions of bounded controls and lower semi-continuity of at least one bounded control that minimizes the environmental heat dissipation functional while maintaining the final-state fidelity above a designated threshold. The analysis combines the direct method of the calculus of variations with the Pontryagin Maximum Principle. The direct method in the calculus of variations (in L ∞ spaces) guarantees existence by demonstrating the compactness of admissible controls and the lower semi-continuity of the cost functional. Second, the Pontryagin Maximum Principle for open quantum systems establishes essential optimality conditions, resulting in coupled state–costate equations and switching functions that define optimal controls. We establish a physical foundation for the optimization problem by defining internal energy, heat flow, and work within the Lindblad framework, resulting in a thermodynamically coherent expression for dissipated energy. This formulation allows for both analytical understanding together with a practical numerical approximation based on the MDR-GRAPE algorithm. To demonstrate numerical consistency, we present MDR-GRAPE, a modified gradient-based algorithm that extends GRAPE to dissipative environments, integrating positivity-preserving techniques for density matrices. Numerical experiments demonstrate reproducible convergence across the five independent initializations considered in this study, providing empirical evidence of consistent convergence toward feasible low-dissipation solutions.
We investigate a time and energy minimization optimal control problem for open quantum systems, whose dynamics is governed through the Lindblad (or Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad) master equation. The dissipation is Markovian time-independent, and the control is governed by the Hamiltonian of a quantum-mechanical system. We are specifically interested to study the purity in a dissipative system constrained by state and control inputs. We deal with the state constraints through Gamkrelidze revisited method, while handling control constraints through the idea of saturation functions and system extensions. This is the first time that quantum purity conservation is formulated in such framework. We obtain the necessary conditions of optimality through the Pontryagin Minimum Principle. Finally, the resulted boundary value problem is solved by a Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN) approach, a technique that is also new in quantum control context. We show that these PINNs play an effective role in learning optimal control actions.
The control of a two-level open quantum system subject to dissipation due to environment interaction is considered. The evolution of this system is governed by a Lindblad master equation which is augmented by a stochastic term to model the effect of time-continuous measurements. In order to control this stochastic master equation model, a Fokker–Planck control framework is investigated. Within this strategy, the control objectives are defined based on the probability density functions of the two-level stochastic process and the controls are computed as minimizers of these objectives subject to the constraints represented by the Fokker–Planck equation. This minimization problem is characterized by an optimality system including the Fokker–Planck equation and its adjoint. This optimality system is approximated by a second-order accurate, stable, conservative and positive-preserving discretization scheme. The implementation of the resulting open-loop controls is realized with a receding-horizon algorithm over a sequence of time windows. Results of numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
We consider an open qutrit system in which the evolution of the density matrix ρ(t)\rho(t)ρ(t) is governed by the Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan–Lindblad master equation with simultaneous coherent (in the Hamiltonian) and incoherent (in the dissipation superoperator) controls. To control the qutrit, we propose to use not only coherent control but also generally time-dependent decoherence rates which are adjusted by the so-called incoherent control. In our approach, the incoherent control makes the decoherence rates time-dependent in a specific controlled manner and within a clear physical mechanism. We consider the problem of maximizing the Hilbert–Schmidt overlap between the final state ρ(T)\rho(T)ρ(T) of the system and a given target state ρtarget\rho_{\text{target}}ρtarget​ , as well as the problem of minimizing the squared Hilbert–Schmidt distance between these states. For both problems, we perform their realifications, derive the corresponding Pontryagin functions, adjoint systems (with two variants of transversality conditions for the two terminal objectives), and gradients of the objectives, and adapt the one-, two-, and three-step gradient projection methods. For the problem of maximizing the overlap, we also adapt the regularized first-order Krotov method. In the numerical experiments, we analyze first the operation of the methods and second the obtained control processes, in respect of considering the environment as a resource via incoherent control.