This e-mail is to announce that Andy Koswara will be defending his dissertation, Robust and Multiobservable Evolutionary Control of Quantum Dynamics, on Friday, July 11^th at 1:00PM in FRNY 3062B. The dissertation is being directed by Dr. Varma, and the abstract is below. All are welcome to attend.

Abstract:

Advances in quantum control theory and optimization techniques have made possible a new phenomenon of quantum engineering. Chemical reactions can now be dynamically manipulated using first-principle quantum chemical models, in which a laser field, rather than a catalyst, serve as photonic reagents to selectively break a chemical bond and yield products via intramolecular rearrangement. A field pulse may also be designed to perform ultrasensitive spectroscopy, where compounds with very similar chemical properties are differentiated through their unique interaction with resonant and off-resonant photons. Despite significant progress in theoretical and laboratory quantum control, however, quantum engineering remains principally challenging due to manifestation of noise and uncertainties associated with the input and system parameters. Specifically, a small magnitude of variation in the field and Hamiltonian parameters would cause an otherwise optimal field to deviate from controlling desired quantum state transitions and reaching a particular objective. Thus, an accurate analysis of robustness of controlled quantum dynamics followed by a robust control framework is essential in achieving quantum control in a practical setting. In this work, theoretical foundations for quantum control robustness analysis are presented from both a distributional perspective - in terms of moments of the transition amplitude, interferences, and transition probability - and a worst-case perspective. In addition, an evolutionary control strategy for achieving robust control via open- and closed-loop approach are described with its mechanism of convergence elucidated using the robustness analysis method.

Catherine Field, Ph.D.

Graduate Program Administrator

School of Chemical Engineering

Purdue University

480 Stadium Mall Drive

West Lafayette, IN 47906

E-mail: field2@purdue.edu

Phone: 765-494-4057

Fax: 765-494-0805