Liouville space time propagation

Equation (5.38) can be interpreted as the scalar product of a forward-moving density and a backward-moving time-dependent operator. The optimal field at time t is determined by a time-dependent objective function propagated from the target time T backward to time t. A first-order perturbation approach to obtain a similar equation for optimal chemical control in Liouville space has been derived in a different method by Yan et al. [28]. 

The exact propagator for a Hamiltonian system for any given time increment At is symplectic. As a consequence it possesses the Liouville property of preserving volume in phase space. 

Our analysis is based on solution of the quantum Liouville equation in occupation space. We use a combination of time-dependent and time-independent analytical approaches to gain qualitative insight into the effect of a dissipative environment on the information content of 8(E), complemented by numerical solution to go beyond the range of validity of the analytical theory. Most of the results of Section VC1 are based on a perturbative analytical approach formulated in the energy domain. Section VC2 utilizes a combination of analytical perturbative and numerical nonperturbative time-domain methods, based on propagation of the system density matrix. Details of our formalism are provided in Refs. 47 and 48 and are not reproduced here. 

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