Dissipative Quantum Control

Nature, in the form of dissipation, inevitably intervenes in our efforts to control a quantum system. In this talk we show that although we cannot, in general, compensate for dissipation by coherent control of the system, such effects are not always counterproductive; for example, the transformation from a thermal (mixed) state to a cold condensed (pure state) can only be achieved by non-unitary effects such as population and phase relaxation.