Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

Exploring the Hamiltonian inversion landscape

Ashley Donovan, HERSCHEL A. RABITZ

Published Jan 1, 2014• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The identification of quantum system Hamiltonians through the use of experimental data remains an important research goal. Seeking a Hamiltonian that is consistent with experimental measurements constitutes an excursion over a Hamiltonian inversion landscape, which is the quality of reproducing the data as a function of the Hamiltonian parameters. Recent theoretical work showed that with sufficient experimental data there should be local convexity about the true Hamiltonian on the landscape. The present paper builds on this result and performs simulations to test whether such convexity is observed. A gradient-based Hamiltonian search algorithm is incorporated into an inversion routine as a means to explore the local inversion landscape. The simulations consider idealized noise-free as well as noise-ridden experimental data. The results suggest that a sizable convex domain exists about the true Hamiltonian, even with a modest amount of experimental data and in the presence of a reasonable level of noise.

DOI
10.1039/c4cp02209b

Related papers

Optimal Hamiltonian identification: The synthesis of quantum optimal control and quantum inversion

J. M. Geremia, HERSCHEL A. RABITZ

We introduce optimal identification (OI), a collaborative laboratory/computational algorithm for extracting quantum Hamiltonians from experimental data specifically sought to minimize the inversion error. OI incorporates the components of quantum control and inversion by combining ultrafast pulse shaping technology and high throughput experiments with global inversion techniques to actively identify quantum Hamiltonians from tailored observations. The OI concept rests on the general notion that optimal data can be measured under the influence of suitable controls to minimize uncertainty in the extracted Hamiltonian despite data limitations such as finite resolution and noise. As an illustration of the operating principles of OI, the transition dipole moments of a multilevel quantum Hamiltonian are extracted from simulated population transfer experiments. The OI algorithm revealed a simple optimal experiment that determined the Hamiltonian matrix elements to an accuracy two orders of magnitude better than obtained from inverting 500 random data sets. The optimal and nonlinear nature of the algorithm were shown to be capable of reliably identifying the Hamiltonian even when there were more variables than observations. Furthermore, the optimal experiment acted as a tailored filter to prevent the laboratory noise from significantly propagating into the extracted Hamiltonian.

The Journal of Chemical Physics•Mar 13, 2003•30 citations

Hamiltonian identification in presence of large control field perturbations

Ying Fu, HERSCHEL A. RABITZ, Gabriel Turinici

Abstract Quantum system inversion concerns learning the characteristics of the underlying Hamiltonian by measuring suitable observables from the responses of the system’s interaction with members of a set of applied fields. Various aspects of inversion have been confirmed in theoretical, numerical and experimental works. Nevertheless, the presence of noise arising from the applied fields may contaminate the quality of the results. In this circumstance, the observables satisfy probability distributions, but often the noise statistics are unknown. Based on a proposed theoretical framework, we present a procedure to recover both the unknown parts of the Hamiltonian and the unknown noise distribution. The procedure is implemented numerically and seen to perform well for illustrative Gaussian, exponential and bi-modal noise distributions.

Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical•Nov 16, 2016•3 citations

Experimental exploration over a quantum control landscape through nuclear magnetic resonance

Qiuyang Sun, István Pelczer, Gregory Riviello +2 more

The growing successes in performing quantum control experiments motivated the development of control landscape analysis as a basis to explain these findings. When a quantum system is controlled by an electromagnetic field, the observable as a functional of the control field forms a landscape. Theoretical analyses have revealed many properties of control landscapes, especially regarding their slopes, curvatures, and topologies. A full experimental assessment of the landscape predictions is important for future consideration of controlling quantum phenomena. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is exploited here as an ideal laboratory setting for quantitative testing of the landscape principles. The experiments are performed on a simple two-level proton system in a H${}_{2}$O-D${}_{2}$O sample. We report a variety of NMR experiments roving over the control landscape based on estimation of the gradient and Hessian, including ascent or descent of the landscape, level set exploration, and an assessment of the theoretical predictions on the structure of the Hessian. The experimental results are fully consistent with the theoretical predictions. The procedures employed in this study provide the basis for future multispin control landscape exploration where additional features are predicted to exist.

arXiv:1502.04045•Physical Review A•Mar 12, 2014•22 citations

Quantum Optimally Controlled Transition Landscapes

HERSCHEL A. RABITZ, Michael Hsieh, Carey M. Rosenthal

A large number of experimental studies and simulations show that it is surprisingly easy to find excellent quality control over broad classes of quantum systems. We now prove that for controllable quantum systems with no constraints placed on the controls, the only allowed extrema of the transition probability landscape correspond to perfect control or no control. Under these conditions, no suboptimal local extrema exist as traps that would impede the search for an optimal control. The identified landscape structure is universal for all controllable quantum systems of the same dimension when seeking to maximize the same transition probability, regardless of the detailed nature of the system Hamiltonian. The presence of weak control field noise or environmental decoherence is shown to preserve the general structure of the control landscape, but at lower resolution.

Science•Mar 25, 2004•434 citations

Gradient algorithm applied to laboratory quantum control

Jonathan Roslund, HERSCHEL A. RABITZ

The exploration of a quantum control landscape, which is the physical observable as a function of the control variables, is fundamental for understanding the ability to perform observable optimization in the laboratory. For high control variable dimensions, trajectory-based methods provide a means for performing such systematic explorations by exploiting the measured gradient of the observable with respect to the control variables. This paper presents a practical, robust, easily implemented statistical method for obtaining the gradient on a general quantum control landscape in the presence of noise. In order to demonstrate the method's utility, the experimentally measured gradient is utilized as input in steepest-ascent trajectories on the landscapes of three model quantum control problems: spectrally filtered and integrated second harmonic generation as well as excitation of atomic rubidium. The gradient algorithm achieves efficiency gains of up to approximately three times that of the standard genetic algorithm and, as such, is a promising tool for meeting quantum control optimization goals as well as landscape analyses. The landscape trajectories directed by the gradient should aid in the continued investigation and understanding of controlled quantum phenomena.

Physical Review A•May 18, 2009•56 citations

Quantum control by means of Hamiltonian structure manipulation

Ashley Donovan, Vincent Beltrani, HERSCHEL A. RABITZ

A traditional quantum optimal control experiment begins with a specific physical system and seeks an optimal time-dependent field to steer the evolution towards a target observable value. In a more general framework, the Hamiltonian structure may also be manipulated when the material or molecular 'stockroom' is accessible as a part of the controls. The current work takes a step in this direction by considering the converse of the normal perspective to now start with a specific fixed field and employ the system's time-independent Hamiltonian structure as the control to identify an optimal form. The Hamiltonian structure control variables are taken as the system energies and transition dipole matrix elements. An analysis is presented of the Hamiltonian structure control landscape, defined by the observable as a function of the Hamiltonian structure. A proof of system controllability is provided, showing the existence of a Hamiltonian structure that yields an arbitrary unitary transformation when working with virtually any field. The landscape analysis shows that there are no suboptimal traps (i.e., local extrema) for controllable quantum systems when unconstrained structural controls are utilized to optimize a state-to-state transition probability. This analysis is corroborated by numerical simulations on model multilevel systems. The search effort to reach the top of the Hamiltonian structure landscape is found to be nearly invariant to system dimension. A control mechanism analysis is performed, showing a wide variety of behavior for different systems at the top of the Hamiltonian structure landscape. It is also shown that reducing the number of available Hamiltonian structure controls, thus constraining the system, does not always prevent reaching the landscape top. The results from this work lay a foundation for considering the laboratory implementation of optimal Hamiltonian structure manipulation for seeking the best control performance, especially with limited electromagnetic resources.

Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics•Jan 1, 2011•19 citations
The identification of quantum system Hamiltonians through the use of experimental data remains an important research goal. Seeking a Hamiltonian that is consistent with experimental measurements constitutes an excursion over a Hamiltonian inversion landscape, which is the quality of reproducing the data as a function of the Hamiltonian parameters. Recent theoretical work showed that with sufficient experimental data there should be local convexity about the true Hamiltonian on the landscape. The present paper builds on this result and performs simulations to test whether such convexity is observed. A gradient-based Hamiltonian search algorithm is incorporated into an inversion routine as a means to explore the local inversion landscape. The simulations consider idealized noise-free as well as noise-ridden experimental data. The results suggest that a sizable convex domain exists about the true Hamiltonian, even with a modest amount of experimental data and in the presence of a reasonable level of noise.
We introduce optimal identification (OI), a collaborative laboratory/computational algorithm for extracting quantum Hamiltonians from experimental data specifically sought to minimize the inversion error. OI incorporates the components of quantum control and inversion by combining ultrafast pulse shaping technology and high throughput experiments with global inversion techniques to actively identify quantum Hamiltonians from tailored observations. The OI concept rests on the general notion that optimal data can be measured under the influence of suitable controls to minimize uncertainty in the extracted Hamiltonian despite data limitations such as finite resolution and noise. As an illustration of the operating principles of OI, the transition dipole moments of a multilevel quantum Hamiltonian are extracted from simulated population transfer experiments. The OI algorithm revealed a simple optimal experiment that determined the Hamiltonian matrix elements to an accuracy two orders of magnitude better than obtained from inverting 500 random data sets. The optimal and nonlinear nature of the algorithm were shown to be capable of reliably identifying the Hamiltonian even when there were more variables than observations. Furthermore, the optimal experiment acted as a tailored filter to prevent the laboratory noise from significantly propagating into the extracted Hamiltonian.
Abstract Quantum system inversion concerns learning the characteristics of the underlying Hamiltonian by measuring suitable observables from the responses of the system’s interaction with members of a set of applied fields. Various aspects of inversion have been confirmed in theoretical, numerical and experimental works. Nevertheless, the presence of noise arising from the applied fields may contaminate the quality of the results. In this circumstance, the observables satisfy probability distributions, but often the noise statistics are unknown. Based on a proposed theoretical framework, we present a procedure to recover both the unknown parts of the Hamiltonian and the unknown noise distribution. The procedure is implemented numerically and seen to perform well for illustrative Gaussian, exponential and bi-modal noise distributions.
The growing successes in performing quantum control experiments motivated the development of control landscape analysis as a basis to explain these findings. When a quantum system is controlled by an electromagnetic field, the observable as a functional of the control field forms a landscape. Theoretical analyses have revealed many properties of control landscapes, especially regarding their slopes, curvatures, and topologies. A full experimental assessment of the landscape predictions is important for future consideration of controlling quantum phenomena. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is exploited here as an ideal laboratory setting for quantitative testing of the landscape principles. The experiments are performed on a simple two-level proton system in a H2{}_{2}2​O-D2{}_{2}2​O sample. We report a variety of NMR experiments roving over the control landscape based on estimation of the gradient and Hessian, including ascent or descent of the landscape, level set exploration, and an assessment of the theoretical predictions on the structure of the Hessian. The experimental results are fully consistent with the theoretical predictions. The procedures employed in this study provide the basis for future multispin control landscape exploration where additional features are predicted to exist.
A large number of experimental studies and simulations show that it is surprisingly easy to find excellent quality control over broad classes of quantum systems. We now prove that for controllable quantum systems with no constraints placed on the controls, the only allowed extrema of the transition probability landscape correspond to perfect control or no control. Under these conditions, no suboptimal local extrema exist as traps that would impede the search for an optimal control. The identified landscape structure is universal for all controllable quantum systems of the same dimension when seeking to maximize the same transition probability, regardless of the detailed nature of the system Hamiltonian. The presence of weak control field noise or environmental decoherence is shown to preserve the general structure of the control landscape, but at lower resolution.
The exploration of a quantum control landscape, which is the physical observable as a function of the control variables, is fundamental for understanding the ability to perform observable optimization in the laboratory. For high control variable dimensions, trajectory-based methods provide a means for performing such systematic explorations by exploiting the measured gradient of the observable with respect to the control variables. This paper presents a practical, robust, easily implemented statistical method for obtaining the gradient on a general quantum control landscape in the presence of noise. In order to demonstrate the method's utility, the experimentally measured gradient is utilized as input in steepest-ascent trajectories on the landscapes of three model quantum control problems: spectrally filtered and integrated second harmonic generation as well as excitation of atomic rubidium. The gradient algorithm achieves efficiency gains of up to approximately three times that of the standard genetic algorithm and, as such, is a promising tool for meeting quantum control optimization goals as well as landscape analyses. The landscape trajectories directed by the gradient should aid in the continued investigation and understanding of controlled quantum phenomena.
A traditional quantum optimal control experiment begins with a specific physical system and seeks an optimal time-dependent field to steer the evolution towards a target observable value. In a more general framework, the Hamiltonian structure may also be manipulated when the material or molecular 'stockroom' is accessible as a part of the controls. The current work takes a step in this direction by considering the converse of the normal perspective to now start with a specific fixed field and employ the system's time-independent Hamiltonian structure as the control to identify an optimal form. The Hamiltonian structure control variables are taken as the system energies and transition dipole matrix elements. An analysis is presented of the Hamiltonian structure control landscape, defined by the observable as a function of the Hamiltonian structure. A proof of system controllability is provided, showing the existence of a Hamiltonian structure that yields an arbitrary unitary transformation when working with virtually any field. The landscape analysis shows that there are no suboptimal traps (i.e., local extrema) for controllable quantum systems when unconstrained structural controls are utilized to optimize a state-to-state transition probability. This analysis is corroborated by numerical simulations on model multilevel systems. The search effort to reach the top of the Hamiltonian structure landscape is found to be nearly invariant to system dimension. A control mechanism analysis is performed, showing a wide variety of behavior for different systems at the top of the Hamiltonian structure landscape. It is also shown that reducing the number of available Hamiltonian structure controls, thus constraining the system, does not always prevent reaching the landscape top. The results from this work lay a foundation for considering the laboratory implementation of optimal Hamiltonian structure manipulation for seeking the best control performance, especially with limited electromagnetic resources.