Stability and convergence of dynamical decoupling with finite amplitude controls

Abstract

Dynamical decoupling is a key method to mitigate errors in a quantum mechanical system, and we studied it in a series of papers dealing, in particular, with the problems arising from unbounded Hamiltonians. The standard bangbang model of dynamical decoupling, which we also used in those papers, requires decoupling operations with infinite amplitude, which is, strictly speaking, unrealistic from a physical point of view. In this paper, we look at decoupling operations of finite amplitude, discuss under what assumptions dynamical decoupling works with such finite amplitude operations, and show how the bangbang description arises as a limit, hence justifying it as a reasonable approximation.