High-precision measurements play a central role in physics, whether for testing the fundamental laws, searching for physics beyond the standard model, or probing the interplay between general relativity and quantum mechanics. They also lead to practical technological applications for timekeeping, geodesy, and quantum-enabled sensors in general.

One promising avenue to reach higher sensitivities is to use state-of-the-art optimal quantum control techniques. Those techniques allow us to search for the fastest, the most efficient, and the most reliable controls to perform operations in quantum systems or even to solve more abstract problems, such as looking for the operations that generate the optimal probe state for a quantum sensor and even the design of sensing protocols, thus fully exploiting the potentiality of current and future experimental setups.

In this talk, I will discuss our recent advances in quantum control techniques and how these can impact different systems of interest, in particular, some exciting new analytical results for two-photon transitions and a general Quantum Control theory to optimize arbitrary computable figures of merit. Those systems of interest that will be discussed include entanglement-enhanced atomic clocks operating with extreme spin squeezed states and Dicke states, a recently proposed atomic interferometer where all degrees of freedom are fully confined called the Tractor Atomic Interferometer, and gyroscopes based on nitrogen-vacancy color centers in diamonds.

Bio: Sebastián C. Carrasco earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the Universidad de Chile, Chile, in 2020. He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland. His research specializes in developing and applying quantum control techniques to manipulate and optimize quantum systems, which are crucial for advancing quantum technologies. At present, his work is primarily focused on quantum sensing applications.