Wei-Norman equations for a unitary evolution

Abstract: The Wei-Norman technique allows to express the solution of a system of linear non-autonomous differential equations in terms of product of exponentials. In particular it enables to find a time-ordered product of exponentials by solving a set of nonlinear differential equations. The method has numerous theoretical and computational advantages, in particular in optimal control theory. We show that in the unitary case, i.e.\ when the solution of the linear system is given by a unitary evolution operator, the nonlinear system can be by an appropriate choice of ordering reduced to a hierarchy of matrix Riccati equations. Our findings have a particular significance in quantum control theory since pure quantum evolution is unitary.