Experimentally Attainable Optimal Pulse Shapes Obtained with the Aid of Genetic Algorithms

TL;DR

This paper introduces a genetic algorithm-based method to design optimal, experimentally feasible pulse shapes for quantum control of molecular systems, demonstrated by maximizing dissociation yield in a diatomic molecule.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach constraining pulse shapes to linear combinations of relevant functions and uses principal component analysis to understand control processes.

Findings

Successfully maximized dissociation yield with optimized pulse

Identified key control processes via principal component analysis

Method adaptable to more complex molecular systems

Abstract

We propose a methodology to design optimal pulses for achieving quantum optimal control on molecular systems. Our approach constrains pulse shapes to linear combinations of a fixed number of experimentally relevant pulse functions. Quantum optimal control is obtained by maximizing a multi-target fitness function with genetic algorithms. As a first application of the methodology we generated an optimal pulse that successfully maximized the yield on a selected dissociation channel of a diatomic molecule. Our pulse is obtained as a linear combination of linearly chirped pulse functions. Data recorded along the evolution of the genetic algorithm contained important information regarding the interplay between radiative and diabatic processes. We performed a principal component analysis on these data to retrieve the most relevant processes along the optimal path. Our proposed methodology could be useful for performing quantum optimal control on more complex systems by employing a wider variety of pulse shape functions.