Feedback plays an essential role in classical control theory, which has been investigated in depth. However, in quantum control theory, the study of feedback is still in its infancy. The paper continues to explore the fundamental characteristics of quantum feedback control for a typical coherent model based on the results of [3] by highlighting the significant differences between quantum feedback control and classical feedback control due to quantum measurement. The paper compares the control performance of quantum feedback control and quantum open-loop control in the cases with and without environment-induced decoherence. It concludes that in some sense, the quantum feedback control is still superior to the quantum open-loop control despite the complicated tradeoff in the feedback case, and further points out that how the quantum measurement-induced-collapse can play a positive role in the quantum feedback control.
Feedback plays an essential role in classical control theory, which has been investigated in depth. However, in quantum control theory, the study of feedback is still in its infancy. The paper continues to explore the fundamental characteristics of quantum feedback control for a typical coherent model based on the results of [3] by highlighting the significant differences between quantum feedback control and classical feedback control due to quantum measurement. The paper compares the control performance of quantum feedback control and quantum open-loop control in the cases with and without environment-induced decoherence. It concludes that in some sense, the quantum feedback control is still superior to the quantum open-loop control despite the complicated tradeoff in the feedback case, and further points out that how the quantum measurement-induced-collapse can play a positive role in the quantum feedback control.
The paper first briefly introduces the current research on quantum control. Then the quantum open-loop control (no measurement introduced) and the closed-loop control (measurement introduced) was compared through a standard model of coherent control. When using quantum closed-loop control, we need measurement which inevitably brings in the reduction noise. This is different from the classical control systems. On the other hand, measurement-based feedback can reduce the influence of the system uncertainties. Thus, there is a tradeoff between the noise influence brought in by the measurement and the information got by the measurement. The paper demonstrate that in the case without decoherence, the quantum closed-loop control is superior to the open-loop control in dealing with the uncertainty in some sense. In the case with decoherence, we discuss the controllability of the quantum control through two performance indices.
In this review paper, we survey the main concepts and some of the recent developments in quantum feedback control. For consistency and clarity, essential ideas and notations in the theory of open quantum systems and quantum stochastic calculus, as well as continuous measurement theory are developed. We give a general description of quantum feedback control, set up a coherent model and compare it to open-loop designs. Objectives which can be achieved by feedback, such as rapid state preparation and purification or entanglement generation are formulated and analyzed, based on the relevant literature. The connection between quantum feedback and quantum chaos is also described and unravelled which, apart from its theoretical curiosity, can shed more light on some of the intrinsic properties of this control paradigm.
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.
We introduce a general framework, based on collision models and discrete completely positive maps, to describe on an equal footing coherent and measurement-based feedback control of quantum mechanical systems. We apply our framework to prominent tasks in quantum control, ranging from cooling to Hamiltonian control. Unlike other proposed comparisons, where coherent feedback always proves superior, we find that either measurements or coherent manipulations of the controller can be advantageous depending on the task at hand. Measurement-based feedback is typically superior in cooling, while coherent feedback is better at assisting quantum operations. Furthermore, we show that both coherent and measurement-based feedback loops allow one to simulate arbitrary Hamiltonian evolutions, and discuss their respective effectiveness in this regard.
It is notoriously known that in contrast to the measure of classical macro systems, the quantum measurement will in general cause quantum state collapse. In this note, we will present some further results on stabilizing control of quantum systems with measurement being involved. To be precise, we will study the effects of the open-loop control and the feedback control in preparing an arbitrarily desired eigenstate of an effective Hamiltonian, respectively. For the open-loop control case, it is shown that no matter how to select the measurement channel, control channel and the control law, one cannot prepare all the eigenstates of the effective Hamiltonian with arbitrary high fidelity for all sufficient large time. While for the feedback case, we not only demonstrate how to select the measurement channel properly to achieve the control target, but also show if not, what cannot be done by the measurement-based feedback control.
As a key method in dealing with uncertainties, feedback has been understood fairly well in classical control theory. But for quantum control systems, the capability of measurement-based feedback control (MFC) has not been investigated systematically. In contrast to the control of classical systems where the measurement effect is negligible, the quantum measurement will cause a quantum state to collapse, which will inevitably introduce additional uncertainties besides the system initial uncertainty. Therefore, there is a complicated tradeoff between the uncertainty introduced and the information gained by the measurement, and thus a theoretical investigation of the capability of MFC is of fundamental importance. In this paper, inspired by both the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for quantum systems and the investigation of the feedback capability for classical systems, we try to answer the following three basic questions: (i) How to choose the measurement channel appropriately? (ii) Is the MFC still superior to the open loop control in dealing with the system information uncertainties? and (iii) What is the maximum capability or limitation of the MFC? These questions will be answered theoretically by establishing several theorems concerning the asymptotic reachability of eigenstates of a typical class of Hamiltonian control mode.