Closed loop molecular connectivity

This chapter has provided a brief overview of the application of optimal control theory to the control of molecular processes. It has addressed only the theoretical aspects and approaches to the topic and has not covered the many successful experimental applications [33, 37, 164-183], arising especially from the closed-loop approach of Rabitz [32]. The basic formulae have been presented and carefully derived in Section II and Appendix A, respectively. The theory required for application to photodissociation and unimolecular dissociation processes is also discussed in Section II, while the new equations needed in this connection are derived in Appendix B. An exciting related area of coherent control which has not been treated in this review is that of the control of bimolecular chemical reactions, in which both initial and final states are continuum scattering states [7, 14, 27-29, 184-188]. 

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