{
  "abstract": "A central goal of quantum optimal control is to achieve high-fidelity and low-energy control pulses. When quantum optimal control methods optimize every point of a pulse discretized over small time steps independently this can yield high fidelity control but also results in broadband and energy-hungry waveforms. We extend MAGICARP, a shooting method inspired by Pontryagin's maximum principle on energy that generates an entire pulse from a small set of parameters, making it smooth and energy-efficient by construction, from driftless systems to closed systems with the constant drift Hamiltonian of two exchange-coupled spins in an external magnetic field. The optimization proceeds in stages: the dressed states of the drift Hamiltonian structure the target, an initial shooting optimization is performed in the rotating-wave frame, and an exact laboratory-frame refinement follows. Benchmarked against Krotov and GRAPE at matched gate infidelity, MAGICARP consistently achieves the lowest energy and a conserved pulse area, concentrates its spectral weight on the gate-relevant transitions, and is the most robust to fluctuations in the exchange coupling; GRAPE independently converges to essentially the same pulse while black-box Krotov meets the same error at an order-of-magnitude energy premium. This method-independence is what qualifies the bounded solver as a measurement instrument, and the central result follows: a large statistical survey of unselected optimization runs resolves a weak-driving quantum speed limit for two exchange-coupled electron spins: low-amplitude realizations of the two-qubit quantum Fourier transform cease to exist below a critical gate time, and the minimum control energy diverges on approach to this limit. The divergence obeys a simple two-parameter area--pole law, $E_2^{\\mathrm{law}}(T)=A/T+B/(T-T^*)$.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2606.22212",
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Denis Janković"
    },
    {
      "name": "Saba Taherpour"
    },
    {
      "name": "Paul-Louis Etienney"
    },
    {
      "name": "Paul-Antoine Hervieux"
    },
    {
      "name": "Christoph Wolf"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a85m34g54yva5.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2606.22212",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "a85m34g54yva5",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.22212",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "LicenseRef-arXiv-nonexclusive-1.0",
  "licence_label": "arXiv licence",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "math-ph"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "math.MP"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "physics.comp-ph"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "quant-ph"
    ],
    [
      "hal",
      "0.chim"
    ],
    [
      "hal",
      "1.chim.mate"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1702|Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7165620802",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.22212",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-21",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a85m34g54yva5.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:23:19Z",
      "native_id": "2606.22212",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.22212"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-03T12:20:18Z",
      "native_id": "hal-05849329",
      "source": "hal",
      "url": "https://univoak.hal.science/hal-05849329v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "chemistry",
      "origin": "hal:1.chim.mate",
      "subfield": "materials-polymers"
    },
    {
      "field": "mathematics",
      "origin": "arxiv:math-ph",
      "subfield": "mathematical-physics"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:physics.comp-ph",
      "subfield": "computational"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:quant-ph",
      "subfield": "quantum"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Probing the Weak-Driving Quantum Speed Limit via Drift-Aware Shooting Methods",
  "title_text": "Probing the Weak-Driving Quantum Speed Limit via Drift-Aware Shooting Methods",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-05T12:20:12Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a85m34g54yva5",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}