Linear theory for optimal control of molecular wave packets

A linear theory for optimizing optical fields to achieve a molecular configuration at a chosen time is formulated with an emphasis on the symmetric transformation between time domain and space domain representations. Based on two different measures of control, the yield and achievement functions, two parallel but distinct optimization schemes are derived in a unified algebraic format. Connections are then established to a more conventional optimization procedure as well as the optimization procedure for squeezing wave packets used by Averbukh and Shapiro [Phys. Rev. A 47, 5086 (1993)]. A numerical example of the production of localized wave packets (i.e., squeezed states) demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed scheme.