Which notion of energy for bilinear quantum systems?

Abstract

In this note we investigate what is the best L^p-norm in order to describe the relation between the evolution of the state of a bilinear quantum system with the L^p-norm of the external field. Although L^2 has a structure more easy to handle, the L^1 norm is more suitable for this purpose. Indeed for every p>1, it is possible to steer, with arbitrary precision, a generic bilinear quantum system from any eigenstate of the free Hamiltonian to any other with a control of arbitrary small L^p norm. Explicit optimal costs for the L^1 norm are computed on an example.