IMA Annual Program Year Workshop

Coherence, Control, and Dissipation

Description:

This workshop will focus on the interplay between mathematical and physical aspects on the three complementary subjects of quantum coherence, control, and dissipative dynamics, with a special emphasis on the dynamics of time-dependent systems driven by external electromagnetic fields and interacting with a medium. These fields have benefited from many ideas and techniques coming from the mathematical and engineering worlds, and have many applications to chemistry and physics.

Areas of interest within coherence and dissipation are quantum/classical treatments, semiclassical methods, density matrix methods including Redfield theory, semigroup theory, and master equations, as well as stochastic Schrödinger equations,and path integral methods. Both instantaneous (Markovian) and delayed (non-Markovian) dissipation are of interest, as well as atomistic and hydrodynamical descriptions of the interacting medium and methods for treating both simple and complex systems. Related mathematical techniques include qualitative and quantitative studies of the evolution equations, noise modelling and the corresponding numerical algorithms.

Within control, aspects of interest include feedback, stochastic control, and control mechanisms relevant to coherence and dissipation. Related mathematical and computational issues in all three subjects will be considered, among which are optimal control, numerical optimization (including stochastic types), numerical algorithms, open and closed loop control, real time feedback, controllability of PDEs, geometric control techniques, inverse problems, robustness with respect to noise, and statistical treatment of experimental data.

Applications include the role of coherence in electronically nonadiabatic photochemical processes, optimal control of chemical reactions using multifrequency pulse shapes, chirping, and learning algorithms, preparation and manipulation of entanglement, and quantum computing and quantum information processing and their experimental realization.

LIST OF CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS