Nearly optimal quantum control: an analytical approach*

We propose nearly optimal control strategies for changing the states of a quantum system. We argue that quantum control optimization can be studied analytically within some protocol families that depend on a small set of parameters for optimization. This optimization strategy can be preferred in practice because it is physically transparent and does not lead to combinatorial complexity in multistate problems. As a demonstration, we design optimized control protocols that achieve switching between orthogonal states of a naturally biased quantum two-level system.