Non-Markovian Quantum Feedback Networks II: Controlled Flows

Abstract: The concept of a controlled flow of a dynamical system, especially when the controlling process feeds information back about the system, is of central importance in control engineering. In this paper we build on the ideas presented by Bouten and van Handel (L. Bouten, R. van Handel, "On the separation principle of quantum control", in Quantum Stochastics and Information: Statistics, Filtering and Control, World Scientific, 2008) and develop a general theory of quantum feedback. We elucidate the relationship between the controlling processes $Z$ and the measured process $Y$, and to this end make a distinction between what we call the input picture and the output picture. We should that the input-output relations for the noise fields have additional terms not present in the standard theory, but that the relationship between the control processes and measured processes themselves are internally consistent - we do this for the two main cases of quadrature measurement and photon-counting measurement. The theory is general enough to include a modulating filter which processes the measurement readout $Y$ before returning to the system. This opens up the prospect of applying very general engineering feedback control techniques to open quantum systems in a systematic manner, and we consider a number of specific modulating filter problems. Finally, we give a brief argument as to why most of the rules for making instantaneous feedback connections (J. Gough, M.R. James, "Quantum Feedback Networks: Hamiltonian Formulation", Commun. Math. Phys., 287, 1109, 2009) ought to apply for controlled dynamical networks as well.