Focus on Quantum Control

Abstract

Control of quantum phenomena has grown from a dream to a burgeoning field encompassing wide-ranging experimental and theoretical activities. Theoretical research in this area primarily concerns identification of the principles for controlling quantum phenomena, the exploration of new experimental applications and the development of associated operational algorithms to guide such experiments. Recent experiments with adaptive feedback control span many applications including selective excitation, wave packet engineering and control in the presence of complex environments. Practical procedures are also being developed to execute real-time feedback control considering the resultant back action on the quantum system. This focus issue includes papers covering many of the latest advances in the field.Focus on Quantum Control ContentsControl of quantum phenomena: past, present and future Constantin Brif, Raj Chakrabarti and Herschel RabitzBiologically inspired molecular machines driven by light. Optimal control of a unidirectional rotor Guillermo Pérez-Hernández, Adam Pelzer, Leticia González and Tamar SeidemanSimulating quantum search algorithm using vibronic states of I2 manipulated by optimally designed gate pulses Yukiyoshi OhtsukiEfficient coherent control by sequences of pulses offinite duration Götz S Uhrig and Stefano PasiniControl by decoherence: weak field control of an excited state objective Gil Katz, Mark A Ratner and Ronnie KosloffMulti-qubit compensation sequences Y Tomita, J T Merrill and K R BrownEnvironment-invariant measure of distance between evolutions of an open quantum system Matthew D Grace, Jason Dominy, Robert L Kosut, Constantin Brif and Herschel RabitzSimplified quantum process tomography M P A Branderhorst, J Nunn, I A Walmsley and R L KosutAchieving 'perfect' molecular discrimination via coherent control and stimulated emission Stephen D Clow, Uvo C Holscher and Thomas C WeinachtA convenient method to simulate and visually represent two-photon power spectra of arbitrarily and adaptively shaped broadband laser pulses M A Montgomery and N H DamrauerAccurate and efficient implementation of the von Neumann representation for laser pulses with discrete and finite spectra Frank Dimler, Susanne Fechner, Alexander Rodenberg, Tobias Brixner and David J TannorCoherent strong-field control of multiple states by a single chirped femtosecond laser pulse M Krug, T Bayer, M Wollenhaupt, C Sarpe-Tudoran, T Baumert, S S Ivanov and N V VitanovQuantum-state measurement of ionic Rydberg wavepackets X Zhang and R R JonesOn the paradigm of coherent control: the phase-dependent light-matter interaction in the shaping window Tiago Buckup, Jurgen Hauer and Marcus MotzkusUse of the spatial phase of a focused laser beam to yield mechanistic information about photo-induced chemical reactions V J Barge, Z Hu and R J GordonCoherent control of multiple vibrational excitations for optimal detection S D McGrane, R J Scharff, M Greenfield and D S MooreMode selectivity with polarization shaping in the mid-IR David B Strasfeld, Chris T Middleton and Martin T ZanniLaser-guided relativistic quantum dynamics Chengpu Liu, Markus C Kohler, Karen Z Hatsagortsyan, Carsten Muller and Christoph H KeitelContinuous quantum error correction as classical hybrid control Hideo MabuchiQuantum filter reduction for measurement-feedback control via unsupervised manifold learning Anne E B Nielsen, Asa S Hopkins and Hideo MabuchiControl of the temporal profile of the local electromagnetic field near metallic nanostructures Ilya Grigorenko and Anatoly EfimovLaser-assisted molecular orientation in gaseous media: new possibilities and applications Dmitry V Zhdanov and Victor N ZadkovOptimization of laser field-free orientation of a state-selected NO molecular sample Arnaud Rouzee, Arjan Gijsbertsen, Omair Ghafur, Ofer M Shir, Thomas Back, Steven Stolte and Marc J J VrakkingControlling the sense of molecular rotation Sharly Fleischer, Yuri Khodorkovsky, Yehiam Prior and Ilya Sh AverbukhOptimal control of interacting particles: a multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree-Fock approach Michael Mundt and David J TannorExact quantum dissipative dynamics under external time-dependent driving fields Jian Xu, Rui-Xue Xu and Yi Jing YanPulse trains in molecular dynamics and coherent spectroscopy: a theoretical study J Voll and R de Vivie-RiedleQuantum control of electron localization in molecules driven by trains of half-cycle pulses Emil Persson, Joachim Burgdorfer and Stefanie GrafeQuantum control design by Lyapunov trajectory tracking for dipole and polarizability coupling Jean-Michel Coron, Andreea Grigoriu, Catalin Lefter and Gabriel TuriniciSliding mode control of quantum systems Daoyi Dong and Ian R PetersenImplementation of fault-tolerant quantum logic gates via optimal control R Nigmatullin and S G SchirmerGeneralized filtering of laser fields in optimal control theory: application to symmetry filtering of quantum gate operations Markus Schroder and Alex Brown