Quantum Control Landscapes

Numerous lines of experimental, numerical and analytical evidence indicate that it is surprisingly easy to locate optimal controls steering quantum dynamical systems to desired objectives. This has enabled the control of complex quantum systems despite the expense of solving the Schrodinger equation in simulations and the complicating effects of environmental decoherence in the laboratory. Recent work indicates that this simplicity originates in universal properties of the solution sets to quantum control problems that are fundamentally different from their classical counterparts. Here, we review studies that aim to systematically characterize these properties, enabling the classification of quantum control mechanisms and the design of globally efficient quantum control algorithms.Comment: 45 pages, 15 figures; International Reviews in Physical Chemistry, Vol. 26, Iss. 4, pp. 671-735 (2007

Notes on Coherent Feedback Control for Linear Quantum Systems

This paper considers some formulations and possible approaches to the coherent LQG and $H^\infty$ quantum control problems. Some new results for these problems are presented in the case of annihilation operator only quantum systems showing that in this case, the optimal controllers are trivial controllers.Comment: A preliminary version is to appear in the proceedings of the 2013 Australian Control COnferenc