Spatiotemporal properties of classical coupled nonlinear oscillators are investigated in this thesis. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to nonlinear lattices and to the concept of breathers, that are spatially localized and temporally periodic excitation in nonlinear lattices. The concept of anti-continuous limit that provides the basic methodology in probing spatiotemporal breather properties is discussed. In Chapter 2, the general approach for finding exact breather solutions from the anti-continuous limit is examined, and the rotating wave approximation(RWA) is applied to probe the spatial structure of static breathers. Numerical evidence reveals that the RWA relates the spatial structure of stable multi-breathers to a single breather of the same frequency. Chapter 3 presents linear stability analysis of static breathers and gives a systematic way to construct mobile breathers. Formation and collision properties of this moving breathers are also studied. Chapter 4 discusses dynamics of kinks and anti-kinks in hydrogen-bonded chains in the context of two-component soliton model. From molecular dynamics simulations with finite temperature, it is observed that, in a real system (eg. ice), a pair of kink and anti-kink can evolve into a moving-breather-like excitation. Chapter 5 is devoted to the understand of the effects of disorder in the Holstein model. The summary is given in Chapter 6.

Quantum computers are being developed to solve certain problems faster than classical computers. Instead of using classical bits, they use quantum bits (qubits) that utilize quantum effects. At Chalmers University of Technology, researchers have already built a quantum chip consisting of two superconducting transmon qubits and are trying to build systems with more qubits. To assist in that process, they make numerical simulations of the quantum systems. However, these simulations face an intrinsic computational limitation: the Hilbert space of the system grows exponentially with the number of qubits. In order to mitigate the problem: the simulations should be made as efficient as possible, by applying certain approximations, while still obtaining accurate results. The aim of this project is to compare several of these approximations, to see how accurate they are and how fast they run on a classical computer. This is done by modelling the qubits as quantum anharmonic oscillators and testing several cases: varying the energy levels of the qubits, increasing the number of qubits, and testing the rotating-wave approximation (RWA). These cases were tested by implementing two-qubit gates on the system. The simulations were all made using the Python library QuTiP. The results show that one should simulate using at least one energy level higher than the maximum energy level required for the gate to function. For larger systems, the RWA will make a big difference in simulation times, while still giving relatively accurate results. When using the RWA, the number of levels used does not seem to affect the results significantly and one could therefore use the lowest possible energy levels that can simulate the system.

Le but principal de la thèse est d'étudier les liens entre les singularités du spectre d'un Hamiltonien quantique contrôlé et les questions de contrôlabilité de l'équation Schr"odinger associée.La principale question qui se pose est de savoir comment contrôler une famille de systèmes quantiques dépendant des paramètres avec une entrée de commande commune. Ce problème de contrôlabilité d'ensemble est lié à la conception d'une stratégie de contrôle robuste lorsqu'un paramètre (une fréquence de résonance ou une inhomogénéité de champ de contrôle par exemple) est inconnu, et constitue un enjeu important pour les expérimentateurs.Grâce à l'étude des familles à un paramètre de Hamiltoniens et de leurs singularités génériques, nous donnons une stratégie de contrôle explicite pour le problème de contrôlabilité d'ensemble lorsque les conditions géométriques sur le spectre des Hamiltoniens sont satisfaites. Le résultat est basé sur la théorie de l'approximation adiabatique et sur la présence de courbes d'intersections coniques de valeurs propres du Hamiltonien contrôlé. La technique proposée fonctionne pour des systèmes évoluant à la fois dans des espaces de Hilbert de dimension finie et de dimension infinie. Nous étudions ensuite le problème de la contrôlabilité d'ensemble sous des hypothèses moins restrictives sur le spectre, à savoir la présence de singularités non-coniques. Sous des conditions génériques, de telles singularités n'apparaissent pas pour des systèmes uniques, mais apparaissent pour des familles de systèmes à un paramètre.Pour l'étude d'un système unique, nous nous concentrons sur une classe de courbes dans l'espace des contrôles, appelées les courbes non-mixantes (définies dans cite{Bos}), qui peuvent optimiser la dynamique adiabatique près des intersections coniques et non coniques. Elles sont liées à la géométrie des espaces propres du Hamiltonien contrôlé et l'approximation adiabatique possède une meilleure précision le long de celles-ci.Nous proposons d'étudier la compatibilité de l'approximation adiabatique avec la Rotating Wave Approximation. De telles approximations sont généralement combinées par les physiciens. Mon travail montre que cela ne se justifie pour les systèmes quantiques à dimensions finies que dans certaines conditions sur les échelles de temps. Nous étudions également les questions de contrôle d'ensemble dans ce cas. / The main purpose of the thesis is to study the links between the singularities of the spectrum of a controlled quantum Hamiltonian and the controllability issues of the associated Schr"odinger equation.The principal issue that is developed is how to control a parameter-dependent family of quantum systems with a common control input. This problem of ensemble controllability is linked to the design of a robust control strategy when a parameter (a resonance frequency or a control field inhomogeneity for instance) is unknown, and is an important issue for experimentalists.Thanks to the study one-parametric families of Hamiltonians and their generic singularities, we give an explicit control strategy for the ensemble controllability problem when geometric conditions on the spectrum of the Hamiltonian are satisfied. The result is based on adiabatic approximation theory and on the presence of curves of conical eigenvalue intersections of the controlled Hamiltonian. The proposed technique works for systems evolving both in finite-dimensional and infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Then we study the problem of ensemble controllability under less restrictive hypotheses on the spectrum, namely the presence of non-conical singularities. Under generic conditions such non-conical singularities are not present for single systems, but appear for one-parametric families of systems.For the study of a single system, we focus on a class of curves in the space of controls, called the non-mixing curves (defined in cite{Bos}), that can optimize the adiabatic dynamics near conical and non-conical intersections. They are linked to the geometry of the eigenspaces of the controlled Hamiltonian and the adiabatic approximation holds with higher precision along them.We propose to study the compatibility of the adiabatic approximation with the rotating wave approximation. Such approximations are usually done in cascade by physicists. My work shows that this is justified for finite dimensional quantum systems only under certain conditions on the time scales. We also study ensemble control issues in this case.