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Controlling Quantum Information Devices

Felix Motzoi

Published Jun 18, 2012• 3 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Quantum information and quantum computation are linked by a common mathematical and physical framework of quantum mechanics. The manipulation of the predicted dynamics and its optimization is known as quantum control. Many techniques, originating in the study of nuclear magnetic resonance, have found common usage in methods for processing quantum information and steering physical systems into desired states. This thesis expands on these techniques, with careful attention to the regime where competing effects in the dynamics are present, and no semi-classical picture exists where one effect dominates over the others. That is, the transition between the diabatic and adiabatic error regimes is examined, with the use of such techniques as time-dependent diagonalization, interaction frames, average-Hamiltonian expansion, and numerical optimization with multiple time-dependences. The results are applied specifically to superconducting systems, but are general and improve on existing methods with regard to selectivity and crosstalk problems, filtering of modulation of resonance between qubits, leakage to non-compuational states, multi-photon virtual transitions, and the strong driving limit.

Related papers

Coherent control for quantum information processing

Gaurav Bhole

An exquisite control over the dynamics of a quantum system is essential for realizing any quantum technology. This thesis presents some practical and efficient strategies for coherent quantum control: a paradigm for controlling quantum dynamics using electromagnetic fields. Coherent control is a common framework for describing the physical implementation of quantum logic gates in several quantum information processing platforms including superconducting qubits and trapped ions. For the purpose of demonstration, however, liquid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is used in this thesis as it is an ideal test-bed for developing, testing and benchmarking coherent control tools and techniques. Coherent control was revitalised in 2005 by the development of Gradient Ascent Pulse Engineering (GRAPE), a powerful optimal control technique that is widely used for designing shaped pulses for a variety of tasks. GRAPE, like any other closed-loop optimal control algorithm, requires multiple evaluations of the computationally expensive matrix exponential and the full time-evolution propagator. To this end, I present strategies to sidestep the explicit evaluation of matrix exponentials, thereby offering substantial speed-ups over conventional implementations of the GRAPE algorithm. The results are demonstrated experimentally in NMR, but also in simulations of ultracold molecules and superconducting qubits. Beyond GRAPE, this thesis also considers methods for designing spin-echo sequences for implementing any arbitrary network of controlled-Z gates in a system of qubits with zz-couplings. First, a method based on linear-programming provides near time-optimal sequences in fully-coupled systems having up to a few hundred qubits. Further, an analytic method based on graph colouring finds near time-optimal spin echo sequences in engineered systems with any number of qubits having only nearest and next-nearest neighbour-couplings.

•Jan 1, 2020•0 citations

Controlling quantum systems for quantum information processing

Kevin C Young

For several decades it has been appreciated that quantum computers hold incredible promise to perform calculations intractable to classical computation. However, this promise has be slow to realize. Dozens of quantum systems are currently being investigated for use in quantum information processing - none of which have yet demonstrated algorithms involving more than a handful of qubits and it remains unclear which, if any, of these systems will ultimately compose a scalable, robust quantum information processing architecture. In this thesis we employ analytical, optimal and algebraic control techniques to evaluate various quantum systems for their potential use in quantum information processing. In doing so, we have additionally identified several novel characterization procedures capable of probing both the coherent and incoherent dynamics of quantum systems. The first part of this thesis discusses work motivated by attempts to utilize donor qubits in silicon as quantum bits. We first propose a measurement of the state of a single donor electron spin using two-dimensional electron gas of a field-effect transistor and electrically detected magnetic resonance. We analyze the potential sensitivity of this measurement and show that it is a quantum nondemolition measurement of an electron-encoded state. We then present the first of two novel qubit characterization procedures. We consider the problem of rapidly characterizing a large number of similarly prepared qubits using techniques from optimal experiment design. All qubits are assumed to evolve according to the same physical processes, though the Hamiltonian parameters may vary from device to device - an inevitability in solid state qubits. We use the Cram\\'er-Rao bound on the variance of a point estimator to construct the optimal series of experiments to estimate these free parameters, and present a complete analysis of the optimal experimental configuration. Though applied to dipole- and exchange-coupled qubits, this technique is widely applicable to other systems. The second part of the thesis discusses the role that control can play in measuring and mitigating noise in qubit systems. Our first result describes a method for quickly simulating the effects of arbitrary markovian noise on qubit systems through the use of a numerically optimized, multi-state Markovian fluctuator. This ability to rapidly simulate the noisy qubit evolution allows us to compute control sequences capable of maximally decoupling the qubit from the noise source. We then introduce the second characterization procedure of the these, showing that a single measurable and controllable qubit may act as a spectrometer of dephasing noise. We show that the formalism of dynamical decoupling can be used to estimate the short-time correlation function of the noise source, while long time correlations may be estimated by a very simple series of free evolution experiments. This technique is applicable to the wide range of physical implementations which suffer from dephasing noise.The final part of this thesis demonstrates that trapped neutral atoms may be utilized for the robust simulation of complex systems exhibiting a topological phase. We present a method to simulate the toric code Hamiltonian stroboscopically, and demonstrate that our technique preserves the ground state degeneracy . Furthermore, we introduce a dissipative mechanism allowing for thermalization of the system to a finite temperature or direct cooling to the ground state manifold.

•Jan 1, 2010•0 citations

Analytical blueprint for 99.999% fidelity X-gates on present superconducting hardware under strong driving

José Diogo Da Costa Jesus, Boxi Li, Yuan Gao +3 more

Achieving very fast gates that undercut the natural limits set by decoherence requires going into the strong driving limit. Realizing single-qubit control predicted beyond semi-classical, time-dependent modeling has yet to be experimentally realized on superconducting and most other computing platforms. In this regime, the common model of dynamics within a three-level manifold breaks down, and instead, we see new quantum error channels growing abruptly with decreasing time. To identify these error processes we systematically calculate the effect of multi-photon transitions that occur out of the computational space. We then derive analytical formulas to suppress these effects, as well as amplitude and phase errors on the qubit space; we term these R1D for suppressing the $|0\rangle-|2\rangle$ transition and R2D when also suppressing $|1\rangle-|3\rangle$ leakage. We also answer long-standing questions about the optimal values of the DRAG prefactor as well as constant detuning, when accounting for time-ordering, and also show how to calibrate other prefactors for further performance improvement. Upon correcting these varied sources of error, we numerically demonstrate gate infidelities below $10^{-5}$ for a 7ns $π$-rotation when incorporating existing decoherence rates.

quant-pharXiv:2512.19919•PRX Quantum•Dec 24, 2025•0 citations

Quantum control theory for coherence and information dynamics

Lorenza Viola, David J. Tannor

Precisely characterizing and controlling the dynamics of realistic open quantum systems has emerged in recent years as a key challenge across contemporary quantum sciences and technologies, with implications ranging from physics, chemistry and applied mathematics to quantum information processing (QIP) and quantum engineering. Quantum control theory aims to provide both a general dynamical-system framework and a constructive toolbox to meet this challenge. The purpose of this special issue of Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics is to present a state-of-the-art account of recent advances and current trends in the field, as reflected in two international meetings that were held on the subject over the last summer and which motivated in part the compilation of this volume—the Topical Group: Frontiers in Open Quantum Systems and Quantum Control Theory , held at the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (ITAMP) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), from 1–14 August 2010, and the Safed Workshop on Quantum Decoherence and Thermodynamics Control , held in Safed (Israel), from 22–27 August 2010. Initial developments in quantum control theory date back to (at least) the early 1980s, and have been largely inspired by the well-established mathematical framework for classical dynamical systems. As the above-mentioned meetings made clear, and as the burgeoning body of literature on the subject testifies, quantum control has grown since then well beyond its original boundaries, and has by now evolved into a highly cross-disciplinary field which, while still fast-moving, is also entering a new phase of maturity, sophistication, and integration. Two trends deserve special attention: on the one hand, a growing emphasis on control tasks and methodologies that are specifically motivated by QIP, in addition and in parallel to applications in more traditional areas where quantum coherence is nevertheless vital (such as, for instance, quantum control of chemical reactions or high-resolution magnetic resonance spectroscopy); on the other hand, an unprecedented demand for close coupling between theory and experiment , with theoretical developments becoming more and more attuned to and driven by experimental advances as different quantum technologies continue to evolve at an impressive pace in the laboratory. Altogether, these two trends account for several of the recurrent themes in this volume, as well as in the current quantum control literature as a whole: namely, the quest for control strategies that can attain the highest degree of precision and robustness possible, while striving for efficiency and, ultimately, optimality in achieving the intended control task under realistic operational constraints. From a theory standpoint, this makes it imperative to take into account increasingly more realistic control settings; to assess the quantitative impact of limited control resources and/or system knowledge; and to provide a rigorous and general foundation for existing experimental approaches in order to further enhance applicability and performance. From an experimental standpoint, renewed emphasis is in turn placed on validating theoretical predictions and benchmarking performance, so that the limiting constraints can be singled out for additional theoretical analysis and guidance. This ongoing cross-talk is clearly reflected in this collection, which brings together theoreticians and experimentalists, with a significant fraction of the papers reporting on combined quantum control theory–experiment efforts. While a precise categorization would neither be possible nor desirable, contributions to this volume have been loosely grouped into five broad sections. This grouping has been made in the hope that connections between different problems and/or technical approaches will become more transparent, facilitating the transfer of concepts and methods. The special issue opens with a section devoted to open-loop control methods, with special emphasis on dynamical decoupling (DD), which is becoming an increasingly important tool for decoherence control at the physical 'quantum firmware' level. In addition to including original research results, the first two articles, by Brion et al and Biercuk et al , also serve to pedagogically review some background in their respective subjects. In particular, Brion et al revisit one of the conceptually simplest approaches to open-loop manipulation of both closed and open quantum systems, nonholonomic control , motivated by its broad applicability to QIP settings. A special instance of open-loop control based on sequences of (nearly) instantaneous `bang-bang' pulses is addressed by Biercuk et al , who reformulate the simplest DD scenario, suppression of phase decoherence in a single qubit, as a filter-design problem. Peng et al report on the implementation of 'concatenated' DD for arbitrary single-qubit decoherence in the context of nuclear magnetic resonance QIP. A dedicated analysis of the performance of different DD schemes in the presence of realistic pulse errors is given by Wang and Dobrovitski. DD is also one of the strategies used by Lucamarini et al to reduce polarization decoherence in a photon qubit. These authors additionally report on the use of active feedback to counter transmission noise, effectively setting the stage for the second section, which is centered on closed-loop control. Unlike in open-loop control, measurement is an essential ingredient in closed-loop schemes aimed at both reliably identifying features of the target quantum system and further modifying its dynamics. The importance of directly measuring the spectrum of the underlying system-environment coupling is stressed by Almog et al , who show how this knowledge is crucial, in particular, for predicting the performance of DD sequences in experiments and for optimizing performance. Riofrio et al address a weak-measurement protocol for implementing quantum state tomography , which is a necessary 'primitive' for inferring the target quantum state and thereby diagnosing the control performance. Next, the impact of realistic control and system imperfections in continuous-time Markovian feedback strategies for rapid state preparation is analyzed by Combes and Wiseman. A prominent role is played in the special issue by optimal control (OC) approaches, reflecting their central importance for quantum control and QIP. The OC contributions have been divided into two separate sections, depending on whether the target dynamics is modeled as Hamiltonian (section 3) or dissipative (section 4), respectively. The contribution by Beltrani et al deals with `control landscapes', which provide a foundation for analyzing the performance of numerical OC algorithms and their robustness against control errors. Specifically, this paper characterizes geometric properties of the control landscape, relevant to the optimal control of state-to-state transitions. Application of OC theory to the problem of population transfer and coherence enhancement in Λ-systems is studied by Kumar et al , whereas Goerz et al report on the OC-design of a high-fidelity controlled phase-gate in atomic qubits. The robustness of an OC solution is specifically addressed by Negretti et al , along with an approach for identifying easily implementable while still 'close-to-optimal' control pulses. Powerful relaxation-optimized OC schemes (based on so-called opengrape algorithms) for generating unitary target gates in the presence of known dissipation parameters are discussed by Schulte-Herbrüggen et al . Next, Lapert et al report on the problem of time-optimal control of spin-1/2 systems undergoing Bloch relaxation dynamics, highlighting the crucial role played by singular extremals in the control synthesis. Alternative approaches for optimized control of qubits exposed to various decoherence processes are developed by Esher et al and Xue et al , based on a perturbative 'bath-optimized' formalism and on numerical optimization via a genetic algorithm, respectively. Testifying to the richness of the field, the volume concludes with four contributions that address a diverse range of problems. The exploitation of properties of adiabatic quantum evolutions is common to the first two papers. In particular, Legthtas et al offer a rigorous explanation for the robustness of a control protocol, chirped pulsing , that is widely employed in 'adiabatic rapid passage' experiments, while Han et al present a theoretical framework for adiabatic Raman photo-association schemes relevant to ultracold atomic systems. In the context of cavity quantum electrodynamics, Montenegro and Orszag describe how to engineer a system of two atoms coupled to distant lossy cavities so that stable atomic entanglement is generated. Finally, still very little is known about the physical mechanisms that are responsible for and control the experimentally observed 'coherent' features of transport phenomena in biological systems. The last contribution by Alicki and Giraldi analyzes energy transport in dynamical systems that can be modeled as 'quantum networks', and points to this fascinating emerging frontier. It is our hope that the above papers may help readers to gain an overview of some of the main trends in current quantum control efforts, both theoretical and experimental. In closing, we take the opportunity to thank the organizations which sponsored the above-mentioned ITAMP Topical Group (the United States National Science Foundation and Harvard University) and the Safed Workshop (the Israeli Science Foundation, the Safed Scientific Workshop program, CECAM and ACAM). Last but not least our sincere gratitude goes to all of the contributors to the volume and the reviewers as well as the J. Phys. B staff, for their respective efforts in preparing the papers and ensuring the overall quality of this special issue.

Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics•Jul 25, 2011•6 citations

Quantum control and Quantum information

Mohan Sarovar

Quantum information science has blossomed into a major research field over the past decade or so. In doing so, it has established links with several other areas of physics, computer science, and engineering. One of these areas is quantum control – the extension of control theory to physical systems whose dynamics are governed by quantum mechanics. Quantum control, like quantum information, is a fairly young field with remarkable technological consequences, and this cross-pollination is proving to be stimulating. In this thesis we explore some of the connections between quantum information and quantum control. In particular, (i) we examine quantum error correction from a quantum feedback control perspective, and demonstrate new continuous time implementations of quantum error correcting codes; (ii) we consider performing quantum feedback control experiments on a solid-state quantum computing architecture – circuit QED – and propose new measurement schemes that would enable such experiments; and (iii) we consider the problem of optimally estimating quantum processes, and in particular, analyze in detail the problem of optimally estimating a one-parameter quantum process.

•Jan 1, 2007•1 citation

DRAG-menetelmä kubittien epäresonanssiajossa

Eero Ristolainen

Quantum computers are a promising new technology that enables the use of quantum algorithms to solve certain problems faster than classical computers. An especially auspicious method for realizing such a device is using a superconducting circuit as the foundational computational unit of the quantum computer, the qubit. These serve as two-level systems allowing for the storage and manipulation of quantum information. For large-scale adoption, precise control of qubits via rapid driving pulses is essential in order to carry out desired operations known as quantum gates. In superconducting qubits, this is often achieved with an external electromagnetic field coupled to the qubit capacitively or inductively. In this case, to achieve faster pulses, the power of the driving field must be increased. This, however, leads to increased heating of the qubit, which in turn can lead to decoherence and the loss of quantum information. One proposed solution is the use of off-resonance driving of the qubit, which enables faster pulses with lower driving power when compared to resonance drive. It also allows for drive line attenuation at the qubit frequency, suppressing decay of the qubit’s energy into the drive line. Another challenge in the operation of the qubit is preventing excitation outside the two states used for computation, known as the computational subspace. In this thesis, we look at optimizing the drive pulse shape as a remedy to this problem in the context of resonance drive, as well as two off-resonant driving methods: subharmonic drive and two-frequency drive. In particular, we make use of the Derivative Removal by Adiabatic Gate (DRAG) method with different pulse shapes in order to attenuate the transition between the first and second excited states of the qubit. The results are obtained with numerical simulation for the transmon, which is a common superconducting qubit. The results show strong suppression of leakage outside the computational subspace using the DRAG method in resonance and two-frequency drive, while in subharmonic drive, no major advantage is gained. We find that in all cases, the edge profiles of driving pulses have major effects on the excitation of unwanted transitions, suggesting that pulse shape optimization is a viable method for improving quantum gate fidelity in all three driving regimes.

•Jun 11, 2026•0 citations
Quantum information and quantum computation are linked by a common mathematical and physical framework of quantum mechanics. The manipulation of the predicted dynamics and its optimization is known as quantum control. Many techniques, originating in the study of nuclear magnetic resonance, have found common usage in methods for processing quantum information and steering physical systems into desired states. This thesis expands on these techniques, with careful attention to the regime where competing effects in the dynamics are present, and no semi-classical picture exists where one effect dominates over the others. That is, the transition between the diabatic and adiabatic error regimes is examined, with the use of such techniques as time-dependent diagonalization, interaction frames, average-Hamiltonian expansion, and numerical optimization with multiple time-dependences. The results are applied specifically to superconducting systems, but are general and improve on existing methods with regard to selectivity and crosstalk problems, filtering of modulation of resonance between qubits, leakage to non-compuational states, multi-photon virtual transitions, and the strong driving limit.
An exquisite control over the dynamics of a quantum system is essential for realizing any quantum technology. This thesis presents some practical and efficient strategies for coherent quantum control: a paradigm for controlling quantum dynamics using electromagnetic fields. Coherent control is a common framework for describing the physical implementation of quantum logic gates in several quantum information processing platforms including superconducting qubits and trapped ions. For the purpose of demonstration, however, liquid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is used in this thesis as it is an ideal test-bed for developing, testing and benchmarking coherent control tools and techniques. Coherent control was revitalised in 2005 by the development of Gradient Ascent Pulse Engineering (GRAPE), a powerful optimal control technique that is widely used for designing shaped pulses for a variety of tasks. GRAPE, like any other closed-loop optimal control algorithm, requires multiple evaluations of the computationally expensive matrix exponential and the full time-evolution propagator. To this end, I present strategies to sidestep the explicit evaluation of matrix exponentials, thereby offering substantial speed-ups over conventional implementations of the GRAPE algorithm. The results are demonstrated experimentally in NMR, but also in simulations of ultracold molecules and superconducting qubits. Beyond GRAPE, this thesis also considers methods for designing spin-echo sequences for implementing any arbitrary network of controlled-Z gates in a system of qubits with zz-couplings. First, a method based on linear-programming provides near time-optimal sequences in fully-coupled systems having up to a few hundred qubits. Further, an analytic method based on graph colouring finds near time-optimal spin echo sequences in engineered systems with any number of qubits having only nearest and next-nearest neighbour-couplings.
For several decades it has been appreciated that quantum computers hold incredible promise to perform calculations intractable to classical computation. However, this promise has be slow to realize. Dozens of quantum systems are currently being investigated for use in quantum information processing - none of which have yet demonstrated algorithms involving more than a handful of qubits and it remains unclear which, if any, of these systems will ultimately compose a scalable, robust quantum information processing architecture. In this thesis we employ analytical, optimal and algebraic control techniques to evaluate various quantum systems for their potential use in quantum information processing. In doing so, we have additionally identified several novel characterization procedures capable of probing both the coherent and incoherent dynamics of quantum systems. The first part of this thesis discusses work motivated by attempts to utilize donor qubits in silicon as quantum bits. We first propose a measurement of the state of a single donor electron spin using two-dimensional electron gas of a field-effect transistor and electrically detected magnetic resonance. We analyze the potential sensitivity of this measurement and show that it is a quantum nondemolition measurement of an electron-encoded state. We then present the first of two novel qubit characterization procedures. We consider the problem of rapidly characterizing a large number of similarly prepared qubits using techniques from optimal experiment design. All qubits are assumed to evolve according to the same physical processes, though the Hamiltonian parameters may vary from device to device - an inevitability in solid state qubits. We use the Cram\\'er-Rao bound on the variance of a point estimator to construct the optimal series of experiments to estimate these free parameters, and present a complete analysis of the optimal experimental configuration. Though applied to dipole- and exchange-coupled qubits, this technique is widely applicable to other systems. The second part of the thesis discusses the role that control can play in measuring and mitigating noise in qubit systems. Our first result describes a method for quickly simulating the effects of arbitrary markovian noise on qubit systems through the use of a numerically optimized, multi-state Markovian fluctuator. This ability to rapidly simulate the noisy qubit evolution allows us to compute control sequences capable of maximally decoupling the qubit from the noise source. We then introduce the second characterization procedure of the these, showing that a single measurable and controllable qubit may act as a spectrometer of dephasing noise. We show that the formalism of dynamical decoupling can be used to estimate the short-time correlation function of the noise source, while long time correlations may be estimated by a very simple series of free evolution experiments. This technique is applicable to the wide range of physical implementations which suffer from dephasing noise.The final part of this thesis demonstrates that trapped neutral atoms may be utilized for the robust simulation of complex systems exhibiting a topological phase. We present a method to simulate the toric code Hamiltonian stroboscopically, and demonstrate that our technique preserves the ground state degeneracy . Furthermore, we introduce a dissipative mechanism allowing for thermalization of the system to a finite temperature or direct cooling to the ground state manifold.
Achieving very fast gates that undercut the natural limits set by decoherence requires going into the strong driving limit. Realizing single-qubit control predicted beyond semi-classical, time-dependent modeling has yet to be experimentally realized on superconducting and most other computing platforms. In this regime, the common model of dynamics within a three-level manifold breaks down, and instead, we see new quantum error channels growing abruptly with decreasing time. To identify these error processes we systematically calculate the effect of multi-photon transitions that occur out of the computational space. We then derive analytical formulas to suppress these effects, as well as amplitude and phase errors on the qubit space; we term these R1D for suppressing the ∣0⟩−∣2⟩|0\rangle-|2\rangle∣0⟩−∣2⟩ transition and R2D when also suppressing ∣1⟩−∣3⟩|1\rangle-|3\rangle∣1⟩−∣3⟩ leakage. We also answer long-standing questions about the optimal values of the DRAG prefactor as well as constant detuning, when accounting for time-ordering, and also show how to calibrate other prefactors for further performance improvement. Upon correcting these varied sources of error, we numerically demonstrate gate infidelities below 10−510^{-5}10−5 for a 7ns πππ-rotation when incorporating existing decoherence rates.
Precisely characterizing and controlling the dynamics of realistic open quantum systems has emerged in recent years as a key challenge across contemporary quantum sciences and technologies, with implications ranging from physics, chemistry and applied mathematics to quantum information processing (QIP) and quantum engineering. Quantum control theory aims to provide both a general dynamical-system framework and a constructive toolbox to meet this challenge. The purpose of this special issue of Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics is to present a state-of-the-art account of recent advances and current trends in the field, as reflected in two international meetings that were held on the subject over the last summer and which motivated in part the compilation of this volume—the Topical Group: Frontiers in Open Quantum Systems and Quantum Control Theory , held at the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (ITAMP) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), from 1–14 August 2010, and the Safed Workshop on Quantum Decoherence and Thermodynamics Control , held in Safed (Israel), from 22–27 August 2010. Initial developments in quantum control theory date back to (at least) the early 1980s, and have been largely inspired by the well-established mathematical framework for classical dynamical systems. As the above-mentioned meetings made clear, and as the burgeoning body of literature on the subject testifies, quantum control has grown since then well beyond its original boundaries, and has by now evolved into a highly cross-disciplinary field which, while still fast-moving, is also entering a new phase of maturity, sophistication, and integration. Two trends deserve special attention: on the one hand, a growing emphasis on control tasks and methodologies that are specifically motivated by QIP, in addition and in parallel to applications in more traditional areas where quantum coherence is nevertheless vital (such as, for instance, quantum control of chemical reactions or high-resolution magnetic resonance spectroscopy); on the other hand, an unprecedented demand for close coupling between theory and experiment , with theoretical developments becoming more and more attuned to and driven by experimental advances as different quantum technologies continue to evolve at an impressive pace in the laboratory. Altogether, these two trends account for several of the recurrent themes in this volume, as well as in the current quantum control literature as a whole: namely, the quest for control strategies that can attain the highest degree of precision and robustness possible, while striving for efficiency and, ultimately, optimality in achieving the intended control task under realistic operational constraints. From a theory standpoint, this makes it imperative to take into account increasingly more realistic control settings; to assess the quantitative impact of limited control resources and/or system knowledge; and to provide a rigorous and general foundation for existing experimental approaches in order to further enhance applicability and performance. From an experimental standpoint, renewed emphasis is in turn placed on validating theoretical predictions and benchmarking performance, so that the limiting constraints can be singled out for additional theoretical analysis and guidance. This ongoing cross-talk is clearly reflected in this collection, which brings together theoreticians and experimentalists, with a significant fraction of the papers reporting on combined quantum control theory–experiment efforts. While a precise categorization would neither be possible nor desirable, contributions to this volume have been loosely grouped into five broad sections. This grouping has been made in the hope that connections between different problems and/or technical approaches will become more transparent, facilitating the transfer of concepts and methods. The special issue opens with a section devoted to open-loop control methods, with special emphasis on dynamical decoupling (DD), which is becoming an increasingly important tool for decoherence control at the physical 'quantum firmware' level. In addition to including original research results, the first two articles, by Brion et al and Biercuk et al , also serve to pedagogically review some background in their respective subjects. In particular, Brion et al revisit one of the conceptually simplest approaches to open-loop manipulation of both closed and open quantum systems, nonholonomic control , motivated by its broad applicability to QIP settings. A special instance of open-loop control based on sequences of (nearly) instantaneous `bang-bang' pulses is addressed by Biercuk et al , who reformulate the simplest DD scenario, suppression of phase decoherence in a single qubit, as a filter-design problem. Peng et al report on the implementation of 'concatenated' DD for arbitrary single-qubit decoherence in the context of nuclear magnetic resonance QIP. A dedicated analysis of the performance of different DD schemes in the presence of realistic pulse errors is given by Wang and Dobrovitski. DD is also one of the strategies used by Lucamarini et al to reduce polarization decoherence in a photon qubit. These authors additionally report on the use of active feedback to counter transmission noise, effectively setting the stage for the second section, which is centered on closed-loop control. Unlike in open-loop control, measurement is an essential ingredient in closed-loop schemes aimed at both reliably identifying features of the target quantum system and further modifying its dynamics. The importance of directly measuring the spectrum of the underlying system-environment coupling is stressed by Almog et al , who show how this knowledge is crucial, in particular, for predicting the performance of DD sequences in experiments and for optimizing performance. Riofrio et al address a weak-measurement protocol for implementing quantum state tomography , which is a necessary 'primitive' for inferring the target quantum state and thereby diagnosing the control performance. Next, the impact of realistic control and system imperfections in continuous-time Markovian feedback strategies for rapid state preparation is analyzed by Combes and Wiseman. A prominent role is played in the special issue by optimal control (OC) approaches, reflecting their central importance for quantum control and QIP. The OC contributions have been divided into two separate sections, depending on whether the target dynamics is modeled as Hamiltonian (section 3) or dissipative (section 4), respectively. The contribution by Beltrani et al deals with `control landscapes', which provide a foundation for analyzing the performance of numerical OC algorithms and their robustness against control errors. Specifically, this paper characterizes geometric properties of the control landscape, relevant to the optimal control of state-to-state transitions. Application of OC theory to the problem of population transfer and coherence enhancement in Λ-systems is studied by Kumar et al , whereas Goerz et al report on the OC-design of a high-fidelity controlled phase-gate in atomic qubits. The robustness of an OC solution is specifically addressed by Negretti et al , along with an approach for identifying easily implementable while still 'close-to-optimal' control pulses. Powerful relaxation-optimized OC schemes (based on so-called opengrape algorithms) for generating unitary target gates in the presence of known dissipation parameters are discussed by Schulte-Herbrüggen et al . Next, Lapert et al report on the problem of time-optimal control of spin-1/2 systems undergoing Bloch relaxation dynamics, highlighting the crucial role played by singular extremals in the control synthesis. Alternative approaches for optimized control of qubits exposed to various decoherence processes are developed by Esher et al and Xue et al , based on a perturbative 'bath-optimized' formalism and on numerical optimization via a genetic algorithm, respectively. Testifying to the richness of the field, the volume concludes with four contributions that address a diverse range of problems. The exploitation of properties of adiabatic quantum evolutions is common to the first two papers. In particular, Legthtas et al offer a rigorous explanation for the robustness of a control protocol, chirped pulsing , that is widely employed in 'adiabatic rapid passage' experiments, while Han et al present a theoretical framework for adiabatic Raman photo-association schemes relevant to ultracold atomic systems. In the context of cavity quantum electrodynamics, Montenegro and Orszag describe how to engineer a system of two atoms coupled to distant lossy cavities so that stable atomic entanglement is generated. Finally, still very little is known about the physical mechanisms that are responsible for and control the experimentally observed 'coherent' features of transport phenomena in biological systems. The last contribution by Alicki and Giraldi analyzes energy transport in dynamical systems that can be modeled as 'quantum networks', and points to this fascinating emerging frontier. It is our hope that the above papers may help readers to gain an overview of some of the main trends in current quantum control efforts, both theoretical and experimental. In closing, we take the opportunity to thank the organizations which sponsored the above-mentioned ITAMP Topical Group (the United States National Science Foundation and Harvard University) and the Safed Workshop (the Israeli Science Foundation, the Safed Scientific Workshop program, CECAM and ACAM). Last but not least our sincere gratitude goes to all of the contributors to the volume and the reviewers as well as the J. Phys. B staff, for their respective efforts in preparing the papers and ensuring the overall quality of this special issue.
Quantum information science has blossomed into a major research field over the past decade or so. In doing so, it has established links with several other areas of physics, computer science, and engineering. One of these areas is quantum control – the extension of control theory to physical systems whose dynamics are governed by quantum mechanics. Quantum control, like quantum information, is a fairly young field with remarkable technological consequences, and this cross-pollination is proving to be stimulating. In this thesis we explore some of the connections between quantum information and quantum control. In particular, (i) we examine quantum error correction from a quantum feedback control perspective, and demonstrate new continuous time implementations of quantum error correcting codes; (ii) we consider performing quantum feedback control experiments on a solid-state quantum computing architecture – circuit QED – and propose new measurement schemes that would enable such experiments; and (iii) we consider the problem of optimally estimating quantum processes, and in particular, analyze in detail the problem of optimally estimating a one-parameter quantum process.
Quantum computers are a promising new technology that enables the use of quantum algorithms to solve certain problems faster than classical computers. An especially auspicious method for realizing such a device is using a superconducting circuit as the foundational computational unit of the quantum computer, the qubit. These serve as two-level systems allowing for the storage and manipulation of quantum information. For large-scale adoption, precise control of qubits via rapid driving pulses is essential in order to carry out desired operations known as quantum gates. In superconducting qubits, this is often achieved with an external electromagnetic field coupled to the qubit capacitively or inductively. In this case, to achieve faster pulses, the power of the driving field must be increased. This, however, leads to increased heating of the qubit, which in turn can lead to decoherence and the loss of quantum information. One proposed solution is the use of off-resonance driving of the qubit, which enables faster pulses with lower driving power when compared to resonance drive. It also allows for drive line attenuation at the qubit frequency, suppressing decay of the qubit’s energy into the drive line. Another challenge in the operation of the qubit is preventing excitation outside the two states used for computation, known as the computational subspace. In this thesis, we look at optimizing the drive pulse shape as a remedy to this problem in the context of resonance drive, as well as two off-resonant driving methods: subharmonic drive and two-frequency drive. In particular, we make use of the Derivative Removal by Adiabatic Gate (DRAG) method with different pulse shapes in order to attenuate the transition between the first and second excited states of the qubit. The results are obtained with numerical simulation for the transmon, which is a common superconducting qubit. The results show strong suppression of leakage outside the computational subspace using the DRAG method in resonance and two-frequency drive, while in subharmonic drive, no major advantage is gained. We find that in all cases, the edge profiles of driving pulses have major effects on the excitation of unwanted transitions, suggesting that pulse shape optimization is a viable method for improving quantum gate fidelity in all three driving regimes.