  In recent years, the optical control of exchange interactions has emerged as
an exciting new direction in the study of the ultrafast optical control of
magnetic order. Here we review recent theoretical works on antiferromagnetic
systems, devoted to i) simulating the ultrafast control of exchange
interactions, ii) modeling the strongly nonequilibrium response of the magnetic
order and iii) the relation with relevant experimental works developed in
parallel. In addition to the excitation of spin precession, we discuss examples
of rapid cooling and the control of ultrafast coherent longitudinal spin
dynamics in response to femtosecond optically induced perturbations of exchange
interactions. These elucidate the potential for exploiting the control of
exchange interactions to find new scenarios for both faster and more
energy-efficient manipulation of magnetism.
