A multidimensional pseudospectral method for optimal control of quantum ensembles

In our previous work, we have shown that the pseudospectral method is an effective and flexible computation scheme for deriving pulses for optimal control of quantum systems. In practice, however, quantum systems often exhibit variation in the parameters that characterize the system dynamics. This leads us to consider the control of an ensemble (or continuum) of quantum systems indexed by the system parameters that show variation. We cast the design of pulses as an optimal ensemble control problem and demonstrate a multidimensional pseudospectral method with several challenging examples of both closed and open quantum systems from nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in liquid. We give particular attention to the ability to derive experimentally viable pulses of minimum energy or duration.