Pulse Width Modulation method for quantum control design

Abstract: Illuminated by the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technology in classical control engineering, we propose the PWM approximation which transforms continuous and bang-bang control into each other. This method works by squeezing the approximation error into high-frequency components above a prescribed cutoff frequency $\Omega$, which can be tailored by modulating the switch time of the bang-bang control. Because the quantum dynamics under bang-bang control can be efficiently calculated, PWM allows us to speed up quantum control design particularly in large dimensional systems with small number of control variables. Moreover, PWM paves the way to implement various bang-bang control protocols in the literature with an arbitrary waveform, which is more desirable in laboratory.