Nearly-optimal quantum control: analytical approach

We propose nearly-optimal control strategies for changing states of a quantum system. We argue that quantum control optimization can be studied analytically within some protocol families that depend on a small set of parameters for optimization. This optimization strategy can be preferred in practice because it is physically transparent and does not lead to combinatorial complexity in multistate problems. For demonstration, we design optimized control protocols that achieve switching between orthogonal states of a naturally biased quantum two-level system.