Accessing the Full Capabilities of Filter Functions: A Tool for Detailed Noise and Control Susceptibility Analysis

The filter function formalism from quantum control theory is typically used to determine the noise susceptibility of pulse sequences by looking at the overlap between the filter function of the sequence and the noise power spectral density. Importantly, the square modulus of the filter function is used for this method, hence directional and phase information is lost. In this work, we take advantage of the full filter function including directional and phase information. By decomposing the filter function with phase preservation before taking the modulus, we are able to consider the contributions to $x$-, $y$- and $z$-rotation separately. Continuously driven systems provide noise protection in the form of dynamical decoupling by cancelling low-frequency noise, however, generating control pulses synchronously with an arbitrary driving field is not trivial. Using the decomposed filter function we look at the controllability of a system under arbitrary driving fields, as well as the noise susceptibility, and also relate the filter function to the geometric formalism.