Active Quantum Reservoir Engineering: Using a Qubit to Manipulate its Environment

Quantum 10, 2143 (2026). https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2026-06-19-2143 Quantum reservoir engineering leverages dissipative processes to achieve desired behaviour, with applications ranging from entanglement generation to quantum error correction. Therein, a structured environment acts as an entropy sink for the system and no time-dependent control over the system is required. We develop a theoretical framework for active reservoir engineering, where time-dependent control over a quantum system is u