State Estimation and Control for Stochastic Quantum Dynamics with Homodyne Measurement: Stabilizing Qubits under Uncertainty

This paper introduces a Lyapunov-based control strategy alongside two filtering methods for controlling and estimating the evolution of coherence vector elements from sequential homodyne measurements. The methods include traditional quantum filtering and a novel extended Kalman filter, which explicitly addresses the dynamics of a stochastic master equation with correlated noise, thereby ensuring the quantum properties of the estimated state variable by design. We also explore scenarios where the system's Hamiltonian is unknown, demonstrating that both filters exhibit reduced performance with increased estimation errors. To address this, we propose a multiple model estimation scheme applicable to either filter. The estimated density operator is then controlled using the proposed switching-based Lyapunov scheme, which guarantees noise-to-state practical stability in probability. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in stabilizing a qubit coupled to a leaky cavity under homodyne detection, even with uncertainty in the resonance frequency.