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IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)

Time optimal control of spin systems with unequal coupling

Haidong Yuan, Navin Khaneja

Published Jan 1, 2006• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this article, we study the problem of time optimal manipulation of dynamics of coupled spins in NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy and quantum information processing. In particular, we analyze the system of three linearly coupled spins with unequal couplings. We give time optimal control laws for steering the state of the spins between points that are of significance in coherent spectroscopy

DOI
10.1109/cdc.2006.377381

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In this thesis, we study methods for optimal manipulation of coupled spin dynamics in the presence of relaxation. We use these methods to compute analytical upper bounds for the efficiency of coherence and polarization transfer between coupled nuclear spins in multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments, under the presence of relaxation. We derive relaxation optimized pulse sequences which achieve or approach these bounds and maximize the sensitivity of the experiments. The two systems examined in detail in this thesis, arising in the context of protein NMR spectroscopy, are a coupled heteronuclear spin pair and an Ising spin chain. New schemes for coherence and polarization transfer are found, which yield substantial gains in transfer efficiency, compared to the traditionally used pulse sequences. From the standpoint of mathematical control theory, the problems arising in connection with optimal manipulation of dissipative quantum dynamics, motivate the study of a class of dissipative bilinear control systems and the computation of their reachable sets. For these systems we show that the optimal solution, corresponding to the maximization of transfer efficiency, and the reachable set can be found by solving a semidefinite program.
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In this paper, we study some control problems related to the control of coupled spin dynamics in the presence of relaxation and decoherence in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The decoherence is modelled through a master equation. We study some model problems, whereby, through an appropriate choice of state variables, the system is reduced to a control system, where the state enters linearly and controls quadratically. We study this quadratic control system. Study of this system gives us explicit bounds on how close a coupled spin system can be driven to its target state and how much coherence and polarization can be transferred between coupled spins. Optimal control for the quadratic control system can be understood as the separation of closed cones, and we show how the derived results on optimal efficiency can be interpreted in this formulation. Finally, we study some finite-time optimal control problems for the quadratic control system.This article is part of the themed issue 'Horizons of cybernetical physics'.
Experiments in coherent spectroscopy correspond to control of quantum mechanical ensemble guiding them from initial to final target states. The control inputs (pulse sequences) that accomplish these transformations should be designed to minimize the effects of relaxation and to optimize the sensitivity of the experiments. For example in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, a question of fundamental importance is what is the maximum efficiency of coherence or polarization transfer between two spins in the presence of relaxation. Furthermore what is the optimal pulse sequence which achieves this efficiency? This manuscript extends our previous work in the above problems. Here, we take into account both the longitudinal and the transverse relaxation mechanisms, thus generalizing our previous results, where the former had been neglected.
In this paper, we study time-optimal control problems related to a system of two coupled qubits where the time scales involved in performing unitary transformations on each qubit are significantly different. In particular, we address the case where unitary transformations produced by evolutions of the coupling take a much longer time as compared to the time required to produce unitary transformations on the first qubit, but a much shorter time as compared to the time to produce unitary transformations on the second qubit. We present a canonical decomposition of SU(4) in terms of the subgroup $\text{SU}(2)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\text{SU}(2)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\text{U}(1)$, which is natural in understanding the time-optimal control problem of such a coupled qubit system with significantly different time scales. A typical setting involves dynamics of a coupled electron-nuclear spin system in pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance experiments at high fields. Using the proposed canonical decomposition, we give time-optimal control algorithms to synthesize various unitary transformations of interest in coherent spectroscopy and quantum-information processing.