Efficient decoupling schemes with bounded controls based on Eulerian orthogonal arrays

The task of decoupling, i.e., removing unwanted interactions in a system Hamiltonian and/or couplings with an environment (decoherence), plays an important role in controlling quantum systems. There are many efficient decoupling schemes based on combinatorial concepts like orthogonal arrays, difference schemes and Hadamard matrices. So far these (combinatorial) decoupling schemes have relied on the ability to effect sequences of instantaneous, arbitrarily strong control Hamiltonians (bang-bang controls). To overcome the shortcomings of bang-bang control Viola and Knill proposed a method called Eulerian decoupling that allows the use of bounded-strength controls for decoupling. However, their method was not directly designed to take advantage of the composite structure of multipartite quantum systems. In this paper we define a combinatorial structure called an Eulerian orthogonal array. It merges the desirable properties of orthogonal arrays and Eulerian cycles in Cayley graphs (that are the basis of Eulerian decoupling). We show that this structure gives rise to decoupling schemes with bounded-strength control Hamiltonians that can be applied to composite quantum systems with few body Hamiltonians and special couplings with the environment. Furthermore, we show how to construct Eulerian orthogonal arrays having good parameters in order to obtain efficient decoupling schemes.